Before the U.S. Secretary of State left Minsk, information appeared in the media about a secret letter that he had allegedly conveyed to Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko from President Donald Trump. After their long face-to-face meeting in Lukashenko’s office such kind of information was supposed to appear.

And it is not important that where it comes from. From west, it aims to attach more importance to the visit and conversation, called by Pompeo “absolutely important”. Meanwhile, the Kremlin, with its demonstrative indifference to what happened in Minsk, tried to determine the degree of readiness of Lukashenko to integrate along with the Eurasian projects to various Western structures such as the EU, NATO.

In their telegram-channels the leakers report that “to protect the sovereignty of Belarus, the United States offers it the accession to the WTO, NATO and the EU within three years, the lifting of all sanctions, the assistance with reforms and a $ 25 billion credit line.”

It is also reported that the United States allegedly promised Belarus "preservation of sovereignty" and support at the international level.

Some time ago the ex-Foreign Minister of Poland promised Lukashenko the support of the West in the amount of 2-3 billion dollar. Now, such an aid was increased to 25 billion on behalf of Trump, a businessman. In other words, the stakes have grown in the game of Belarusian sovereignty. The EU and NATO are also offered for protecting this sovereignty.

There is reason to assume the U.S. intends to revive such a half-forgotten regional organization as GUAM. Today, it is chaired by Azerbaijan, a Moscow-friendly country. Minsk, too, maintains “special relations” with Baku in general.
In the case of the reanimation of GUAM, its abbreviation may receive a “plus” implying Belarus, even only as an observer in this period. Perhaps Pompeo, in his face-to-face meeting with Lukashenko, touched upon this, while mentioning about 25 billion dollars? One can only hope Western media will be more knowledgeable and will tell about Trump`s new projects in one of the parts of the former Soviet Union.

About the author:

Roman Yakovlevsky is a political analyst from Belarus.