Sanctions against the Belarusian authorities are not Washington's policy toward Minsk. This was stated by the head of department for Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine of the U.S. State Department for European and Eurasian Affairs Lawrence Silverman. "The sanctions are neither an objective, nor politics, they are a tool, a way to influence," he said, speaking at Brookings Institution on February 3.
«The policy of Obama’s Administration (Obama — Telegraf) does not consist solely in the application of sanctions. We would certainly like to see other relations with the Belarusian government. Something similar happened in 2006, 2007 and 2008 … There were positive signals,» the U.S. State Department spokesman said, RIA «Novosti» news agency.
According to Lawrence Silverman, the U.S. had to resort to sanctions to make it clear to the Belarusian authorities that their response to the opposition protests was simply unacceptable. At the same time, the OSCE Office closure in Minsk had a great influence on the imposition of sanctions as well. «We considered it unacceptable and reacted. Now we want to ensure that sanctions are working. We are closely watching the changes that might follow. We keep on demanding the release of all detainees in the protests and lifting all their accusations, but meanwhile we leave all of the restrictions in force,» said the State Department spokesman.
Lawrence Silverman stressed that the sanctions had had positive results, because Belarusian authorities had released several opposition leaders, preserving the charges though.
Other Countries Face the Same Problems, Representative of Belarusian Embassy
The representative of the Belarusian Embassy in the U.S. urged the authorities not to forget the reasons for such steps. «Let me remind you that the demonstrators held an authorized rally at one area and then they moved to another — the police created no obstacles for them. Then they quietly began to move toward the building with the Electoral Commission inside. The arrests followed only after people tried to break into the building. The authorities of any other country would behave the same way to prevent the riots,» he said.
However, Director of the Institute of the USA and Europe, Fiona Hill, noted that during the riots in London, Athens and Egypt, the police «did not do such things as in Belarus.»
According to Telegraf, the U.S. State Department announced the introduction of unilateral sanctions against a number of Belarusian companies on January 31. For example, the U.S. revoked document permitting the U.S. citizens to have business with «Lakokraska» and «Polotsk-Steklovolokno.» In addition, the U.S. has also expanded the list of Belarusian citizens not to enter the country.
