Lukashenko begins official visit to Serbia

Lukashenko begins official visit to Serbia

BELGRADE -- Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko laid a wreath at the Monument to the Unknown Hero on Mt. Avala near Belgrade late on Wednesday.

As national anthems of Belarus and Serbia were sounded, Lukashenko "honored the Serb soldiers who did not hesitate to sacrifice their lives for freedom and a peaceful and dignified future for the coming generations," Tanjug reported.

The Belarus president laid the wreath with high military and state honors of the Guard of the Serbian Army, as he officially began his visit to Serbia.

Lukashenko was accompanied by his son Nikolay.

The Belarus delegation also attended, as did high officials of the Serbian Defense Ministry and army, including Chief of the General Staff General Ljubiša Diković.

On Thursday, Lukashenko will meet with President Tomislav Nikolić. Several agreements are planned to be signed, and the two presidents will address the media later in the day.

Lukashenko's image in the West is that of an autocratic leader and the EU has on several occasion introduced sanctions against him.

He visited Serbia for the first time as the country came under attack from NATO in 1999, when he arrived here to show his support for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and its leader, Slobodan Milošević.

In 2009, he was in Serbia again "on a vacation" in Mt. Kopaonik, but he later also met with representatives of the then state leadership.

The daily Danas notes in its reports that Serbia, as a candidate for membership, supported EU sanctions against Belarus introduced for violations of human rights and media freedoms.

When this Belgrade-based newspaper told...