Although the leaders of Germany and Belarus have not yet directly spoken about the Belarusian situation, Berlin has other channels for communicating its position to Minsk, German Federal Foreign Office spokeswoman Maria Adebahr said on Wednesday
BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th August, 2020) Although the leaders of Germany and Belarus have not yet directly spoken about the Belarusian situation, Berlin has other channels for communicating its position to Minsk, German Federal Foreign Office spokeswoman Maria Adebahr said on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Alexander Lukashenko, the president of protest-engulfed Belarus, claimed that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had called him on the phone. The German government told Reuters that the call never took place. Merkel, in the meantime, has had a confirmed discussion of the situation in Belarus with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We summoned the Belarusian ambassador for a talk last week and handed him a message, for example. In any case, you can count on that we have the channels to communicate our position to Belarus," Adebahr said at a briefing, replying to a question about why there was still no direct contact between Merkel and Lukashenko.
Answering the same question, Ulrike Demmer, the deputy spokesperson for the German federal government, said that the government "was informing [the public] about only those phone talks which actually took place and not the attempted ones."
Shortly later on Wednesday, Merkel confirmed that she had indeed attempted to arrange a phone call with Lukashenko, but in vain.
According to Lukashenko's spokeswoman, Natalya Eismont, the Belarusian president sees no reason to converse with the German chancellor at this time. Earlier in the day, he ordered the Belarusian Security Council to communicate to the Western leaders, including Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, a warning of liability if they interfere in Belarus' internal affairs. The spokeswoman said Lukashenko had communicated the same warning to "Germany and the whole of Western Europe" during the conversation with Putin.
Mass protests began in Belarus on August 9 following a presidential election that saw the incumbent president reelected for a sixth consecutive term. Although the electoral authorities claim Lukashenko collected over 80 percent of the vote, the opposition believes that his key contender, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, won the election.
Police cracked down on protesters during the first several days of the unrest, but have since halted the excessive use of force. More than 6,700 people were detained during the initial phase of the protest. According to the Belarusian Interior Ministry, three people died and several hundred others sustained injuries during that period, including more than 120 security officers.
