Merkel Raps China, Plans Talks With Belarus Opposition

Date: 30 September 2020 - 21:38

News ID: ۸۳۳۹۶

BERLIN (Dispatches) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday she would hold talks with Belarus’s main opposition leader, days after French President Emmanuel Macron met with her and pledged to help mediate in her country’s crisis.
Merkel, who holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said Germany did not recognize President Alexander Lukashenko as the winner of the vote in Belarus.
Macron spoke with Tikhanovskaya this week on a visit to Lithuania in her most high-profile meeting so far since the Belarus election.
"We will do our best as Europeans to help mediate and we will come back to OSCE mediation in order to progress,” Macron said.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has offered to help broker a negotiated end to the crisis in Belarus.
Merkel also accused China of "poor and cruel treatment” of minorities and underlined deep concerns over Beijing’s security measures to return stability to Hong Kong.
In a speech at the Bundestag a day before an EU summit, Merkel vowed to bring up rights issues and Germany’s purported worries over the situation in the former British colony in any future dialogue with Beijing.
"Of course we have to bring up our different opinions in talks,” said Merkel, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.
"That’s why we have flagged up our deep concern about the development in Hong Kong. The principle of one country, two systems stands but again and again it’s being undermined.
"We will bring that up, as well as the poor and cruel treatment in part of the rights of the minorities in China.”
She did not name the minorities bearing the brunt of poor treatment but the West has accused China over the mass internment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.
According to Western claims, more than one million ethnic Uighurs and other minorities have been herded into internment camps to undergo political indoctrination.
China insists the camps are training centers aimed at providing education to reduce the allure of takfiri radicalism.
Beijing is also under fire from the West over a security law it imposed on Hong Kong in June to calm the situation after months of Western-backed violent riots.