US State Department Official Ties Talks on Belnaftakhim Sanctions to Release of Political Prisoners, Human Rights

If the Belarusian authorities release former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin and two more opponents imprisoned recently and improve the human rights situation, in particular allow peaceful demonstrations, Washington will “talk to them” about lifting sanctions against the Belarusian State Petrochemical Industry Concern (Belnaftakhim), David Merkel, deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs at the US Department of State, said in an interview with Belapan.

The official said that Washington and Minsk had agreed this past January that “if they released all six political prisoners and made improvements on the human rights situation, then we would engage in dialogue with them to see about rolling back the sanctions.”

Mr. Merkel noted that the Belarusian government sought to condition the normal operation of the Minsk-based US embassy, where currently only four US diplomats continue working, on the abolition of the sanctions.

“These are separate issues, the sanctions are tied to human rights and political prisoners,” he stressed.

Mr. Merkel noted that the US government was “obviously interested in resolving this situation.” “The Belarusian government knows what they have agreed to do and need to do to resolve the situation,” he said, adding that the agreement was the basis for discussions on the matter between the United States, the European Union and Belarus.

When asked about Washington’s response to the staff cuts at its embassy ordered by the Belarusian authorities, Mr. Merkel said that the US government was considering “a full range of options.”

In November 2007, the US Treasury Department announced that any assets found in the USA that belong to Belnaftakhim should be frozen, as the Department had added Belnaftakhim to its list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons. The resulting sanctions also barred US citizens from doing business with Belnaftakhim and its offices.

Minsk recalled its ambassador to the USA, Mikhail Khvastow, on March 7 "for consultations" after the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a statement with regard to the applicability of the sanctions.

The Belarusian foreign ministry emphatically recommended that US Ambassador Karen Stewart leave Belarus "for the same purpose." The ambassador went away after the Belarusian government had threatened to expel her in retaliation for the US sanctions. "I was not expelled, but they made it clear that that would be the next step if I did not leave," she told reporters later.

Seventeen American officers of the US embassy in Minsk left Belarus in late March in pursuance of a request from the Belarusian authorities that wanted the embassy to cut its staff to the number that the Belarusian diplomatic mission in Washington has.

Ten American embassy officers were declared persona-non-grata last week and eleven diplomats left the country a few days later.