BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st June, 2021) Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Die Welt that new sanctions against Belarus are inevitable, promising extending sanctions to other sectors of the Belarusian economy.
"I believe, that additional sanctions against Belarus are inevitable," Maas said.
The foreign minister added that now the sanctions will be extended to parts of Belarusian economy like the potash industry and the energy sector.
"We must also deprive the government in Minsk of the opportunity to raise funds within the EU by issuing government bonds," Maas said as quoted by the newspaper.
The German foreign minister spoke ahead of the European Union Foreign Affairs Council which will be held in Luxembourg on Monday and will discuss issues surrounding Belarus and sanctions against Minsk as well as relations with Iraq and Latin American countries.
Earlier in June, EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell said that he was hopeful the EU will adopt targeted economic sanctions against Belarus over the Ryanair incident during the next meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council.
In May, a Ryanair airplane traveling from Greece to Lithuania made an emergency landing in Minsk over a bomb threat, which turned out to be fake. Two of its passengers, Roman Protasevich, the founder of a Telegram channel that Belarus designated as extremist, and his girlfriend, Russian national Sofia Sapega, were detained during the stopover.
Since the incident, the EU blocked Belarus airlines from flying to the bloc and also stopped carriers from its 27 nations from using Belarus airspace.
