Belarus must release political prisoners: Baltic ministers

(HELSINKI) - Foreign ministers of Nordic and Baltic countries jointly called for the immediate release of political prisoners in Belarus during a regional summit in Helsinki on Tuesday.

"We are demanding that Belarus authorities release all political prisoners. This is our common position," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis said at a so-called NB8 summit of Nordic and Baltic foreign ministers hosted by Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja.

On August 4 Belarus police arrested leading rights activist Ales Beliatski, head of the Viasna Human Rights Centre which helps political prisoners and provides legal support to those who dared rise against President Alexander Lukashenko's rule.

Tuomioja, who called developments in Belarus "very worrying", said all of the region's representatives -- which also included the foreign ministers of Sweden, Latvia, Iceland and Estonia, in addition to government representatives from Denmark and Norway -- had agreed that they could not engage Belarus until these prisoners were released.

He also said they were united in calling for greater involvement of the European Union in the Middle East peace process and in resolving conflicts in North Africa.

"We are all at the service of the international community and the United Nations in the work that needs to be done in Libya... to end the violence and put it on the road to democracy," he said.

Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, meanwhile, drew attention to what he called a "very worrying deterioration" of the situation in Syria.

Earlier Tuesday activists said security forces killed seven people when they opened fire in several towns to disperse protesters who emerged from mosques on the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr feast.

"On the EU side, we need to take further measures against the regime...and we hope there will be a resolution in the UN Security Council," Bildt said.

Also on Tuesday, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government to stop its violent crackdown on protesters and release those arrested.