Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is in The Hague, where, on the sidelines of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly session, the Interparliamentary Group “For a Democratic Belarus” was officially launched.
The initiative brings together 35 MPs 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. The group in the OSCE will coordinate support for the democratic forces of Belarus and keep the country high on the OSCE agenda.
In her remarks, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya thanked the MPs for their continued support for Belarus and noted that similar groups are now active in 22 national parliaments. She stressed that the future of a free Belarus is a matter of European security and called on partners not to normalize relations with the Lukashenka regime until all political prisoners are released and systemic democratic reforms are underway.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: “I firmly believe that a free Belarus would transform the security of our entire region. It would no longer serve as Russia’s military outpost. It would no longer pose a threat to Ukraine or the European Union. Instead, it would become a trusted neighbor, a reliable European partner, and an important contributor to European security”.
