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Russian leader tells foreign ministry to take into account rights defenders' opinion about situation in Belarus

 

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday told the country's foreign ministry to take into account human rights defenders' opinion about the situation in Belarus, BelaPAN said.

"I can tell you straight and want our Belarusian friends in a broad sense to know about my stance: I'm also surprised at what happened there," Mr. Medvedev said at a meeting of Russia's civil society and human rights council.

"And I gave a directive that the foreign ministry should attend to the arguments that you are citing in your appeal when devising the Russian Federation's diplomatic position in general," Mr. Medvedev said.

He was commenting on a critical report by Russian human rights defenders on the situation in Belarus after December's presidential election.

The Russian president noted that his remarks on the subject would have been "less diplomatic" but for the decision to post the full transcript of the meeting on the Kremlin's website.

"Don't you forget that you are human rights defenders and I'm the head of state," he added.

Speaking about his views on Belarus' political life, Mr. Medvedev referred the Council's members to his last year's video blog entry.

"In my opinion, I spoke very explicitly about a number of aspects related to the development of political life in Belarus. I want to tell you that I have not changed my stance after the election," he said.

In the October 3 video blog entry, the Russian leader accused the Belarusian counterpart of building his reelection campaign on “anti-Russian scenarios, hysterical allegations that Russia is unwilling to support the Belarusians and the Belarusian economy and curses against the Russian leadership.”

“The president of Belarus should better address internal problems, including the investigation of numerous disappearances of people, which is long overdue,” Mr. Medvedev said. “Like other countries, Russia is not indifferent about this.”