Robert Tyszkiewicz: Dialogue With Belarus Only Possible Given Respect To Human Rights, Civil Freedoms
- 20.06.2017, 14:29
The Belarusian authorities should fulfill their international obligations.
Member of the Polish Sejm, Chairman of the Sejm Commission for Belarus Robert Tyszkiewicz said this:
- For Poland, Belarus has a special significance. We are open for cooperation and normalization of our relations, but we want it to be real and to mean progress in key areas of our bilateral relations.
25 years of the Polish-Belarusian relations - is the story of dashed hopes and unrealized projects, but it's also a story of constant rotations. There is something in our neighborhood, which prompts us to make a new attempt to revive the hope, to resume the dialogue.
Someone might say that this is the Russian Federation. The last 25 years confirm the existence of the real neighbouring cohesion in our societies, the capital of mutual sympathy on both sides of the border, which are pushing to promote contacts and seek new opportunities for mutual benefit.
In view of the weakness of the political relations, the Polish-Belarusian neighborhood remains filled with content mainly due to the strength of social expectations. It is important to continiuously improve the social aspect of our bilateral relations.
We are already seeing positive results, such as the liberalization of the cross-border traffic in the area of the Bialowieza Forest and the Augustow Canal. This is important both for the intensification of contacts between people, and for the development of the economic and tourism potential of border regions.
Both sides should pay all possible efforts to make the border a minimum burdensome place, ensuring effective and save movement of people.
In this context, it is extremely important to remind the Belarusian side about the need to complete all the procedures for the ratification of an agreement on small border traffic.
The dialogue between Belarus, Poland and the EU in the field of human rights and civil liberties should fill the content of the Agreement. The reaction of the Belarusian authorities to peaceful protests in the spring of this year caused a justified concern in Warsaw and other European capitals. Europe wants to see real evidence that the Belarusian authorities are serious about their international obligations. Moratorium on the death penalty or its complete abolishment would be such a signal.
I wish that in the future our dialogue is developing in the spirit of respect and trust. Poland was, is and will be ready to support Belarus on the path of modernization, as well as share its own experience.
Although today we are members of various political and economic blocs, our relationship can develop as a truly good-neighborly.
The hope for a more active and open neighborhood settled in the hearts of young Belarusians, many thousands of whom are now choosing to study in Poland, in order to know the realities of the European Union and the Western world, establish contacts and friendships for the future. I believe that young Belarusians and Poles will fill our region with new energy, thanks to which the existing barriers will be destroyed.