We need to make these sanctions to be agreed and fully implemented, said the general of the alliance
Some NATO member-countries are considering imposing additional sanctions against Belarus in response to the landing of the Irish airline Ryanair in Minsk. This was stated by Secretary General of the organization Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday in London.
“I think the most important thing is to make sure that these sanctions are agreed and fully implemented,” Stoltenberg told the BBC broadcaster after a meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “And I also know that other members are exploring whether they can go further”, – the NATO secretary-general said.
He explained that NATO had “agreed on a very tough statement” on Belarus, but he said some member states of the North Atlantic Alliance were ready to go further in tightening restrictive measures.
Stoltenberg called for the immediate release of Roman Protasevich, one of the founders of NEXTA, a Telegram channel recognized as extremist in Belarus, and his girlfriend, Russian citizen Sofia Sapega, who were arrested after the plane landed, and for an “independent and impartial investigation” into the circumstances of the Ryanair incident.
The NATO chief pledged that at the alliance’s upcoming summit in Brussels on June 14, its members, “in addition to responding to Belarus’ intolerable behaviour,” will also discuss the response to the actions of “a more assertive Russia.”
“This is part of her behaviour, we see that Russia and Belarus are working closely together”, – Stoltenberg argued.
Moscow has consistently and forcefully rejected Western claims that its actions are allegedly aggressive in nature, directed against other states.
British prime minister on support for NATO
Johnson, for his part, called NATO’s support for Britain’s security “outstanding”, citing the 2018 poisoning of former GRU Colonel Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, as well as the actions of hackers, in this regard.
“We want to make sure that we work together to protect us from cyber attacks, from all the kinds of intimidation that some NATO members still feel on the eastern borders of the alliance, we work together to protect ourselves from that,” the British prime minister said. He called the incident with the plane landing at Minsk airport “shocking and outrageous”.