Lukashenka not going to open border with Lithuania

A year after the visit of the Belarusian dictator to Vilnius has passed, but agreements have not been observed.

As informed by ru.DELFI.lt, by his decree Alyaksandr Lukashenka approved the draft agreement between the governments of Belarus and Latvia on simplified mutual visits of dwellers of the border territories of the two states. Meanwhile, such an agreement between Lithuania and Belarus has remained not signed yet. Lithuania has performed all the necessary procedures for signing the agreement on streamlined cross-border movement with Belarus back in September 2009, however the Belarusian side asked to postpone its realization.

In the end of September Ihar Rachkouski, chairman of the State Border Committee of Belarus, stated that the intergovernmental agreement on cross-border cooperation of Belarus and Lithuania would be signed before the end of the year: “It is a purely technical question”.

But this “purely technical question” has not been solved yet, though almost a year has passed.

A political observer Raman Yakauleuski believes that there are no reasons to state categorically that Minsk is ready to cooperate with Latvia and Lithuania.

“Minsk constantly declares its readiness to cooperate, but declarations and actions are different things,” the observer notes. “The importance of the agreement on favourable cross-border visa regime agreement signed by the head of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry in Latvia should not be exaggerated, as the same document was signed by the head of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry in February this year in Warsaw. But things aren't moving,” Yakauleuski stated.

“Without permission, Lukashenka’s approval, his minister would sign nothing in Warsaw or in Riga. Internal state procedures should be performed, which are done rather quickly in the conditions of one man’s dictatorship. And when such things do not happen, suspicions of some mysterious reasons emerge,” the expert explains.

As for the agreement with Latvia, it should be noted that Syarhei Martynau has explained the beginning of his work in a very interesting way, Yakauleuski believes.

“He said that allegedly Minsk approves the idea (whose?) for the document approved by Lukashenka (in which way?) would be signed by him during the possible visit to Riga. I have not heard the president of Latvia expressing a desire to invite the Belarusian president. And Lukashenka’s visit is not a guarantee that the document would be signed. Last year it didn’t happen in Vilnius,” he supposed.

According to Yakauleuski, the recent incident with detention of a high-ranking Lithuanian policeman Laimonas Bankauskas in Belarus can complicate the process of work of signing the agreement between Lithuania and Belarus.