Belarusian President Lukashenko reached an agreement with US President Trump: Belarus pardons 52 prisoners, and in return, the United States lifts sanctions on Belarus' national airline Belarus Airlines.

Lukashenko talks with the US: reaching an agreement on prisoner pardon and sanctions lifting
Lukashenko met with Trump's envoy Kohl on Thursday, who is leading a U.S. delegation to Minsk.
In the talks, Lukashenko said: "If Trump insists on accepting all released prisoners, then God bless you, we might as well try to reach a ‘global agreement’ - a ‘big agreement’ as Trump often says.”
As Cole revealed, Trump has instructed him to lift sanctions on Belarus "immediately" as part of the agreement. At the same time, Kohl also said that the United States hopes to reopen its embassy in Minsk.
Released persons include citizens from multiple countries and opposition
Belarus said that the pardon order was issued "based on humanitarian principles", and among the 52 released people, 14 foreign citizens from Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
It is worth noting that opposition activist Statkevic is also on the pardon list. Previously, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison for organizing a large-scale protest in 2020.
Review of the background of multiple pardons to Western sanctions since 2024
Belarusian authorities have pardoned nearly 300 people since July 2024, including not only imprisoned U.S. citizens, but also another prominent opposition, Tikhanovsky.
Tikhanovsky's release stems from Trump's envoy Kellogg's visit to Minsk in June 2024 and meeting with Lukashenko, who is also the highest-level U.S. official to visit Minsk over the years.
Public information shows that Tykhanovsky was banned from participating in the 2020 Belarusian presidential election for organizing large-scale riots (the opposition said there was widespread election fraud at the time), and was eventually sentenced to 18 years in prison.
In response, Belarusian authorities insisted that the riot in 2020 was jointly planned by the United States and its European "satellite countries" and neighboring Ukraine.
Since then, many Western countries have imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on Belarus, including sanctions measures after the escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in 2022.
In 2023, the Biden administration of the United States also imposed sanctions on Belarus on the grounds that it accused Belarus of election fraud and accused it of acting as "complice" in conflicts and hostilities in Ukraine.
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