{"id":583517,"date":"2026-09-30T15:47:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T12:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=583517"},"modified":"2026-09-30T16:09:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:09:04","slug":"sikorski-says-relations-with-belarus-have-seen-a-slight-thaw-after-poczobut-s-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/sikorski-says-relations-with-belarus-have-seen-a-slight-thaw-after-poczobut-s-release","title":{"rendered":"Sikorski Says Relations With Belarus Have Seen a \u201cSlight Thaw\u201d After Poczobut\u2019s Release"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Polish Foreign Minister <b>Rados\u0142aw Sikorski<\/b> said in an interview with the newspaper <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rp.pl\/multimedia\/art45213581-wladimir-putin-zaproszony-na-g20-radoslaw-sikorski-polska-nie-powinna-bojkotowac-szczytu\">Rzeczpospolita<\/a> that relations with Belarus had seen a \u201cslight thaw\u201d. He said the improvement was influenced by the release of Belarusian journalist <b>Andrzej Poczobut<\/b> through US mediation, as well as the possibility of his return to Belarus.<\/p>\n<p><i>\u201cWe are seeing a slight thaw, as Belarus has done what successive Polish governments called for: it released Andrzej Poczobut \u2014 through US mediation \u2014 and even allowed him to return and released him again,\u201d<\/i> the foreign minister said.<\/p>\n<p>He added that <i>\u201cthe launches of smuggling balloons have stopped recently\u201d<\/i> and that the Polish-Belarusian border was calm. In his assessment, this was not due to Belarus but was the result of Poland spending more than one billion euros on building a barrier and conducting border security operations.<\/p>\n<p><i>\u201cSome people in the country seem to believe that Poland has certain eternal, unchanging friends and enemies; meanwhile, the essence of foreign policy is to persuade other subjects of international law to act in ways that best serve our interests \u2014 and if their policies change, we can change ours too,\u201d<\/i> the minister said.<\/p>\n<p><i>\u201cIt is in our interests for Belarus to retain its statehood, separate from Russia,\u201d<\/i> he stressed, noting the difference between being a partner of Russia and becoming part of it.<\/p>\n<p>Sikorski also said that over the past 30 years, the situation had been \u201cmoving towards\u201d an expansion of Russia\u2019s territory at Belarus\u2019s expense.<\/p>\n<p><i>\u201cThe goal is to prevent such a development,\u201d<\/i> he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Polish Foreign Minister Rados\u0142aw Sikorski said in an interview with the newspaper Rzeczpospolita that relations with Belarus had seen a \u201cslight thaw\u201d. He said the improvement was influenced by the release of Belarusian journalist Andrzej Poczobut through US mediation, as well as the possibility of his return to Belarus. \u201cWe are seeing a slight thaw, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":583516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6abd09f52a646.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Sikorski Says Relations With Belarus Have Seen a \u201cSlight Thaw\u201d After Poczobut\u2019s Release"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338,143090],"tags":[143118,143248,143122],"class_list":["post-583517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news","category-politics","tag-belarus","tag-polsha","tag-rossija"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":583518,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583517\/revisions\/583518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}