Belarus freed 25 prisoners on Sept. 16 in exchange for the United States lifting some sanctions, with there being the possibility of more prisoner releases in the future, U.S. envoy John Coale said.
Coale told Reuters that the process had been successful and that President Donald Trump was “very happy with this.”
Speaking from the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, where the former detainees were taken, Coale said that he expects to return to Minsk in a month to secure the freedom of “hundreds” of others including journalists, lawyers, political activists, and human rights campaigners who are currently incarcerated in Belarus.
This latest deal follows a series of negotiations stretching back more than a year between Coale and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin….