Makei: At next summit, we will sign agreements everyone will talk about

Over 20 years, Belarus has had difficult relations with Europe. Hence, one cannot hope that relations will be repaired overnight, according to Belarusian Foreign Minister Uladzimir Makei who put the blame on this lenthy difficult period for having failed to sign an agreement on the reduction of Schengen visa costs and other deals. However, things will change soon, Uladzimir Makei told this Euroradio correspondent after the Eastern Partnership summit in Brussels on 24 November.

He said: "The next summit will take place in two years. I am confident Belarus will come to the next summit at a new level of cooperation with the European Union. I am confident that at the next summit we can sign agreements that everyone will be talking about and that will be of benefit to Belarus and Europe. I am not here to fortune-tell but as far as the Basic Partnership and Cooperation agreement and the agreement on the facilitation of the visa regime I will say only one thing: we are interested in havng the framework agreement as quickly as possible. We proposed this long time ago and we can see now that our European friends have changed their approach. Therefore, we believe that although it is hard to forecast here, we will begin work already early next year to develop this agreement.

On the visas, some final touches are required on technicalities apart from one or two political issues that we are working on, indeed. I do not want to elaborate on this but I think we can overcome all these difficulties and become ready to sign this agreement along with the deal on readmission in the near future."

Makei also admitted that he talked with representatives of the Ukraine delegation about the fate of Ukrainian journalist Pavlo Sharoyko detained by KGB and charged with espionage in Belarus. However, he refused to elaborate on the details of his conversation, adding only that "everything is good."