Defiant Belarus leader shrugs off sanctions, says athlete was ‘manipulated’
© Reuters. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko holds a recordsdata conference in Minsk, Belarus August 9, 2021. Pavel Orlovsky/BelTA/Handout by technique of REUTERS
By Natalia Zinets, William James and Elizabeth Piper
KYIV/LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A defiant President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday a Belarusian sprinter defected on the Olympic Video games only on narrative of she had been “manipulated” by initiate air forces and shrugged off a coordinated barrage of most modern Western sanctions.
At an hours-long recordsdata conference on the anniversary of an election which opponents said was rigged in philosophize that he also can get, Lukashenko denied being a dictator and said he had defended Belarus in opposition to opponents plotting a coup.
As he spoke in his presidential palace in Minsk, Britain, Canada and the US announced coordinated sanctions concentrated on the Belarusian economic system and its financial sector, including exports of oil merchandise and potash, which is aged in fertilisers and is Belarus’ main international currencies earner.
Lukashenko said Britain would “choke” on its measures and he was ready for talks with the West instead of a sanctions battle.
Lukashenko said he had obtained the presidential election slightly on Aug. 9, 2020 and that some of us had been “getting ready for a excellent-trying election, while others had been calling … for a coup d’état.”
Tens of hundreds of of us joined freeway protests in 2020 – Lukashenko’s largest field since he modified into president in 1994. He responded with a crackdown wherein many opponents enjoy been arrested or long past into exile. They say planning a coup.
Dismissing accusations that he is a dictator, he said: “In account for to dictate – I am an completely sane particular person – you enjoy to enjoy the suitable sources. I enjoy by no diagram dictated anything else to anyone and I am no longer going to.”
Belarus has again been within the international spotlight since sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya fled to Warsaw last week following a dispute alongside with her coaches wherein she said an account for came from “excessive up” to ship her dwelling from Tokyo.
“She would no longer enact it herself, she was manipulated. It was from Japan, from Tokyo, that she contacted her associates in Poland and so that they prompt her – actually – whenever you reach to the airport, trail to a Eastern police officer and bawl that those who dropped her off on the airport are KGB brokers,” Lukashenko said.
“There was no longer a single particular provider agent in Japan.”
DICTATORSHIP DENIAL
Lukashenko, 66, has saved energy with political abet and financial backing from Russia, which sees Belarus as a buffer allege in opposition to the NATO navy alliance and the European Union.
Belarus would acknowledge if needed to sanctions rigidity but “there’s no longer any such thing as a enjoy to absorb the sanction axes and pitchforks,” he said.
Western countries announcing sanctions cited violations of human rights and election fraud. U.S. President Joe Biden decried what he referred to as a “brutal campaign of repression to stifle dissent.”
“…The actions of the Lukashenka regime are an illegitimate effort to abet on to energy at any price. It is the accountability of all those who care about human rights, free and excellent-trying elections, and freedom of expression to face in distinction oppression,” Biden said.
Biden’s executive account for enables the US to block of us doing industry with a immense replacement of Belarusian officers and others alive to by activities within the country considered low. It additionally restricts the transfer of their property within the US and their lumber to the country.
The British sanctions additionally prohibited the get of transferable securities and cash-market devices issued by the Belarusian allege and allege-owned banks. Canada unveiled same action.
Old sanctions, including by the EU, enjoy no longer persuaded Lukashenko to commerce course.
“Whereas we take it with patience, let’s take a seat down on the negotiating desk and commence talking about the suitable diagram to secure out of this diagram, on narrative of we are able to secure slowed down in it with no diagram back,” Lukashenko said.
Tensions with Western powers hit new heights after Belarus forced a plane to land in Minsk in Could maybe maybe just and arrested a dissident Belarusian journalist who was on board.
Individually, neighbouring Lithuania and Poland accuse Belarus of looking out for to engineer a migrant disaster in retaliation for EU sanctions.
Poland reported a story sequence of migrants had crossed the border from Belarus since Friday, announcing they had been presumably from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lukashenko says Lithuania and Poland are guilty.
He additionally denied involvement within the death last week of Vitaly Shishov, who led a Kyiv-based mostly organisation that helps Belarusians fleeing persecution. Shishov was chanced on hanged in Kyiv.
Lukashenko’s opponents direct there are with out a doubt more than 600 political prisoners in penal complicated.
“Sanctions are no longer a silver bullet, but they’ll abet end the repression,” exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said in Vilnius.