EU must be firm on Belarus political prisoners: ministers

(SOPOT) - European foreign ministers on Saturday urged the EU to stand firm on its demand for the release of political prisoners in Belarus before any talks with strongman Alexander Lukashenko.

"There will be no rapprochement with the EU until he (Lukashenko) frees political prisoners," Austria's Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger said on the margins of an informal EU foreign ministers' meeting in the Polish Baltic port city of Sopot.

"It's a clear signal (...) because it's unacceptable there are political prisoners in Belarus, that they haven't been set free and that the political opposition is being prevented from organising," he added.

Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said there was "a consensus" on this matter in Europe.

"The liberation and rehabilitation -- their participation in politics -- of all political prisoners in Belarus is a prerequisite for our resumption of dialogue with authorities in Belarus," Sikorski said on the margins of the Sopot meeting.

"Of course we will urge the Belarus authorities to go in this direction, but what is clear is that we will not engage in horse-trading for prisoners," he added.

Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov said Friday that Belarus freed 13 political prisoners over the past month as a first step to a larger pledge by Lukashenko to release all those arrested by October.

In a move coordinated with EU diplomatic chief Catherine Ashton, Mladenov met discreetly with Lukashenko on August 26 in Minsk, where the Belarussian president made his pledges to release all political prisoners.

Authorities in ex-Soviet Belarus jailed several dozen activists and leading political figures in the wake of anti-government protests following Lukashenko's contested re-election in December, although a small number have already been released under an amnesty.