President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday pardoned a US lawyer jailed on charges of industrial espionage and hoped the move would help improved Belarus's strained relations with Washington. The release of Emmanuel Zeltser, serving a three-year term, has long been demanded by the US State Department on health grounds.
It is one of many sticking points in years of difficult ties culminating last year in the departure from Minsk of the US ambassador. Lukashenko, long accused of infringing human rights in the ex-Soviet state, has been trying to improve relations with the West for two years, especially the European Union.
The president's press service said Zeltser, jailed last year at the height of a diplomatic row, had been pardoned by decree. Lukashenko had earlier met a US Congressional delegation. "As this is important for America and our relations and will help create a normalisation of our relations, I am signing this decree today," Lukashenko's press service quoted him as saying.
There was no indication when Zeltser, who is serving his term in the eastern town of Mogilyov, would be released. After meeting the Congressmen, Lukashenko had restated that US sanctions against Belarus had to be rescinded before full relations could be restored. But delegation leader Benjamin Cardin, a Democratic senator from Maryland, said Lukashenko had told the visitors that Zeltser could even be released later in the day.
"We were very happy to hear from the president that he intends to release Zeltser," Cardin, chairman of the Senate Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe, told a news conference. "We hope it will happen sometime today.