VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Belarus freed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, key opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova and dozens of other political prisoners on Saturday, capping two days of talks with Washington aimed at improving ties and getting crippling US sanctions lifted on a key Belarusian agricultural export.
President Alexander Lukashenko pardoned 123 prisoners, Belarus’ state news agency, Belta, reported. In exchange, the US said it was lifting sanctions on the Eastern European country's potash sector.
A close ally of Russia, Minsk has faced Western isolation and sanctions for years. Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been repeatedly sanctioned by the West for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
John Coale, the US special envoy for Belarus who met with Lukashenko in Minsk on Friday and Saturday, described the talks to reporters as “very productive" and said normalizing relations between the two countries was “our goal,” Belta reported.
“We’re lifting sanctions,
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