Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is in The Hague, where the interparliamentary group “For a Democratic Belarus” was officially launched on the sidelines of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly session. The initiative brings together 35 parliamentarians from 17 countries: Sweden, Ukraine, Germany, Poland, Latvia, Iceland, Norway, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Finland, Italy, Moldova, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Denmark.
As the Tsikhanouskaya Office said, the parliamentary group will coordinate support for the democratic forces and keep Belarus high on the organization’s agenda.
In her address, Tsikhanouskaya thanked the parliamentarians for supporting Belarus and noted that similar groups are already operating in 22 national parliaments. She said that the issue of a free Belarus is a matter of European security and called against normalizing relations with the Belarusian authorities without the release of political prisoners and systemic democratic changes.
“I firmly believe that a free Belarus would transform the security of our entire region. It would no longer be Russia’s military outpost. It would no longer threaten Ukraine or the European Union. Instead, it would become a reliable neighbor, a trusted European partner, and an important contributor to European security,” the democratic opposition leader said.
