(Reuters) – Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei has died aged 64, the Belta news agency reported on Saturday.
“Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei passed away suddenly,” Belta wrote.
He had been in office since 2012.
After attending this week in Yerevan, Armenia, at a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance bringing together several former Soviet republics, Vladimir Makeï was to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Monday.
Before the 2020 presidential election and the repression of the protest movement against the re-election of Alexander Lukashenko, Vladimir Makeï was one of the architects of attempts to improve relations between Belarus and Western countries, even if it meant showing himself criticism of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
However, he completely changed his position after the first demonstrations, claiming that they were the result of manipulation by the Western secret services.
(Reuters editorial staff, French version Bertrand Boucey)
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