NYT: Washington and Minsk plan to conclude a "grand bargain"

A "grand deal" is planned between Washington and Minsk, under which Belarus will release "many political prisoners" and the United States will ease sanctions against the country. This was stated at a meeting of Western diplomats in Vilnius on February 13 by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Smith, sources told The New York Times who attended the event.

Smith arrived in Vilnius from Belarus, where he met with the President of the Republic Alexander Lukashenko on February 12. This was the first meeting of the Belarusian president with a high-ranking State Department official in the last five years and could be the beginning of a "significant warming" in relations between the two countries, the newspaper notes.

Smith met with Lukashenko, "slipped into Belarus unnoticed," and then, together with an American citizen and two Belarusian "political prisoners" released by Minsk, left for Vilnius, writes NYT.

Speaking in front of the US Embassy in Lithuania, the diplomat welcomed the successful completion of what he called a "special operation," calling the release of prisoners "a huge victory and a response to the slogan of the President (US Donald)." Trump's "Peace through strength."

Smith called a possible "grand bargain" the next step. As part of it, the United States, in exchange for the release of "political prisoners", will ease sanctions against Belarusian banks and potassium exports.

The United States imposed sectoral sanctions on the Belarusian economy in the summer of 2021, following the EU and the UK in connection with the situation around the presidential elections in Belarus in 2020. Then protests broke out in the country because Lukashenko was declared the winner. Subsequently, a number of opposition politicians were sentenced to various terms, some of them, led by Lukashenka's opponent in the elections Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, went abroad.

Western countries did not recognize the election results. Sanctions against Belarus have been repeatedly expanded.

Lukashenko called the restrictive measures imposed by the West "gangster". At the same time, he said that the sanctions period is a "time of opportunity."

In January, presidential elections were held in Belarus, in which Lukashenko won, receiving, according to the CEC, 86.82% of the vote. This is his seventh presidential term.