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European Parliament should engage in equal dialogue with Belarus, lawmaker says

The European Parliament should engage with Belarus in a dialogue on the principles of equality and mutual respect, a Belarusian lawmaker said when meeting with Jean-Claude Frecon, a member of the Senate of France and vice president of the Council of Europe’s Congress, in Minsk on Thursday, BelaPAN reports.

“Unfortunately, Belarus doesn`t have such relationship with the European Parliament," said Ihar Karpenka, deputy head of the standing committee on international affairs and relations with the CIS in the House of Representatives (Belarus’ lower parliamentary house).

There is “shared understanding on the part of European MPs only at the national level,” Mr. Karpenka said.

“We are a small state and we can have some problems,” he said. “But a political dialogue should be free from any conditions or dictate. The dialogue could promote European values about which there is so much talk in the European Parliament.”

Mr. Frecon, who arrived in Minsk as head of a delegation of the French city of La Fere, said that a dialogue could help the parties learn more about each other and find solutions to common problems.