Sannikov: Sikorski kowtows to Lukashenka

Actions of Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski will result in aggravation of repressions against citizens of Belarus, the leader of civil campaign “European Belarus” Andrei Sannikov is convinced.

“It was Sikorski who was an active advocate of the “new” policy of the European Union in relations with Lukashenka’s regime. When this policy started, we were promised a speedy democratisation. However, now we see the results of this strategy. Instead of manly admitting failure of his actions in relations to Belarus, Minister Sikorski kowtows to dictator Lukashenka, hoping to get at least any result,” Andrei Sannikov said in an interview to charter97.org website.

During yesterday’s meeting in Kyiv Sikorski agreed with Lukashenka to create some joint Polish-Belarusian commission, which experts are to solve the problem of the Polish minority in Belarus “calmly and behind-the-scenes”, as Polish Foreign Minister said.

“We know from Communist times that in order to bury a problem one should set up a commission. Such thing has happened now. Despite of the fact that Polish President Kaczynski, EU Parliament President Jerzy Buzek and Sejm Co-chairman Komarowski say that the problem is not just in Belarusian Poles, but in the dictatorial regime, which attacks the entire civil society, the head of the Polish Foreign Ministry stubbornly refuses to notice the real meaning of the developments. His actions are aimed at toning down the conflict, and not resolving it,” the leader of “European Belarus” said.

Andrei Sannikov underlines: “Ideals of “Solidarity” and “Realpolitik” are at the scales of today’s Polish policy towards Belarus. How Belarusians will see Poland is to depend on the tendency which would prevail”.