German, Russian ministers at odds over Belarus vote outcome
Berlin - The foreign ministers of Germany and Russia differed Wednesday in their assessment of the outcome of last month's controversial election in Belarus which saw President Alexander Lukashenko returned to power with 83 per cent of the vote. 'The will of the Belarus people as well as those in Ukraine must form the basis of relations with these sovereign states,' Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin. Steinmeier said the March 19 vote in Belarus did not meet international standards whereas the polls in Ukraine a week later did. Western observers widely condemned the election in Belarus as fraudulent. The two ministers did agree that a solution had to come through diplomacy and not through confrontation.
No comments:
Post a Comment