U.S. presidential special envoy John Coale promised during talks with Aliaksandr Lukashenka to unfreeze the funds he had mentioned on Friday.
“I fully, absolutely support your demands. In fact, you are absolutely right. This money should be unfrozen and returned. We have approached the bank with a request to unfreeze these funds. We are now working out a mechanism for how to do this. As soon as we receive a specific response from the bank, we will inform you immediately,” Lukashenka’s press service quoted Coale as saying.
It should be recalled that on Friday, at the Obuz-Liasnouski training ground, Lukashenka said that $43-44 million had been held up at Citibank, money paid by a company that had been cooperating with the Belarusian side.
“But return what you owe us. $43-44 million of our money is stuck at Citibank — a company that cooperated with us paid the money. It is stuck with wealthy America. Please return this money to us,” he said at the time.
Today, Lukashenka thanked John Coale for the U.S. side’s close attention to his statements and said he was ready to discuss any issues.
Lukashenka said he was ready to discuss any issues.
“John, of course, I am grateful to you for closely following my statements. As for your statement that we can discuss other issues, you know, we are open to discussing any issues. The only thing — this is not a demand, as you said, but a request from me to you — is that we strictly comply with our agreements. On our side and on the side of the United States of America,” he said.
“Of course,” John Coale confirmed.
Lukashenka once again noted that a number of agreements had already been reached in the economic sphere, which was why he had invited the head of government.
“We have reached quite a few agreements concerning our economic relations, which is why I invited the prime minister, who in literally a few phrases or words will inform both you and all of us here about the implementation of our agreements,” he said.
