Alexander Lukashenko’s go to comes shortly earlier than navy authorities holds nationwide polls extensively condemned as a sham.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has arrived in Myanmar on a goodwill go to seen as lending assist to the Southeast Asian nation’s navy authorities prematurely of a widely condemned national election set to be held subsequent month.
Myanmar state media reported on Friday that Senior Normal Min Aung Hlaing, the nation’s self-installed de facto chief, met Lukashenko on the Presidential Palace within the capital, Naypyidaw.
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“This go to demonstrated Belarus’s goodwill and belief in the direction of Myanmar and marked a historic event. It’s the first time in 26 years of diplomatic relations {that a} Belarusian Head of State has visited Myanmar,” navy run outlet The International New Mild of Myanmar reported.
Lukashenko’s arrival at a navy airport in Naypyidaw on Thursday night time noticed him welcomed by senior figures from Myanmar’s navy authorities, together with Prime Minister Nyo Noticed, with full state honours and cultural performers.
After former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Lukashenko is barely the second overseas chief to go to Myanmar since its navy overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected Nationwide League for Democracy (NLD) authorities in a coup on February 1, 2021.
The Belarusian chief’s go to additionally comes only a month earlier than the navy is ready to host nationwide elections that many home and worldwide observers have condemned as a sham. His go to is extensively considered as lending assist to the polls, on account of be held in late December, and which the navy authorities has touted as a return to normalcy.
Following Lukashenko’s assembly with Min Aung Hlaing on Friday, The International New Mild additionally confirmed that Belarus plans to “ship an statement workforce to Myanmar” to observe the polls.
The leaders additionally agreed that “collaboration may also be strengthened in navy applied sciences and commerce”, a day after the Myanmar-Belarus Growth Cooperation Roadmap 2026–2028 was signed in Yangon.
Belarus state media quoted Minister of International Affairs Maxim Ryzhenkov as saying that Myanmar has “vital potential in varied industrial sectors”, whereas Belarus has “experience and fashionable applied sciences in mechanical engineering”.
“Myanmar plans to mechanise its agriculture, and we in Belarus produce a whole lineup of equipment and tools. As our president says, no subjects are off limits for our cooperation,” Ryzhenkov mentioned.
Belarus’s authorities is extensively considered authoritarian, with Lukashenko serving as the previous Soviet state’s first and solely president for the reason that workplace was established in 1994.
Together with main backers China and Russia, Belarus is among the only a few international locations which have continued to interact with Myanmar’s navy leaders for the reason that coup.
A preferred protest motion within the rapid aftermath of the coup has since morphed right into a years-long civil war, additional weakening the Myanmar navy’s management over the fractured nation, the place ethnic armed teams have fought decades-long wars for independence.
Getting ready for the polls, military government census takers in late 2024 had been solely in a position to depend populations in 145 of Myanmar’s 330 townships – indicating the navy now controls lower than half the nation.
Different latest estimates place the navy’s management as little as 21 % of the nation’s territory. Ethnic armed teams and the anti-regime Individuals’s Defence Power – which have pledged to boycott and violently disrupt the upcoming polls – management roughly double that quantity of territory.
Amid geographic limitations and raging violence, in addition to the Myanmar navy’s March 2023 dissolution of Aung San Suu Kyi’s vastly common NLD, critics have pointed to the absurdity of holding elections in such circumstances.
Getting ready for the polls, navy leaders carried out a mass amnesty on Thursday, pardoning or dropping costs in opposition to 8,665 individuals imprisoned for opposing military governance.
