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 help to the Southeast Asian nation’s navy authorities upfront of a widely condemned national election set to be held subsequent month.
Myanmar state media reported on Friday that Senior Basic 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 Gentle 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 simply the second international 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 about to host nationwide elections that many home and worldwide observers have condemned as a sham. His go to is extensively considered as lending help 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 Gentle additionally confirmed that Belarus plans to “ship an remark crew to Myanmar” to observe the polls.
The leaders additionally agreed that “collaboration will even be strengthened in navy applied sciences and commerce”, a day after the Myanmar-Belarus Improvement Cooperation Roadmap 2026–2028 was signed in Yangon.
Belarus state media quoted Minister of International Affairs Maxim Ryzhenkov as saying that Myanmar has “important potential in varied industrial sectors”, whereas Belarus has “experience and trendy applied sciences in mechanical engineering”.
“Myanmar plans to mechanise its agriculture, and we in Belarus produce an entire 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 likely one of the only a few nations which have continued to interact with Myanmar’s navy leaders for the reason that coup.
A well-liked 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.
Making ready for the polls, military government census takers in late 2024 have been solely capable of rely 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 well-liked NLD, critics have pointed to the absurdity of holding elections in such circumstances.
Making ready for the polls, navy leaders carried out a mass amnesty on Thursday, pardoning or dropping expenses in opposition to 8,665 folks imprisoned for opposing military governance.
