Trump’s envoy Cole met with Lukashenko in Minsk
On Tuesday, 15 September, the US President’s Special Envoy for Belarus, John Cole, arrived in Minsk, where he met with the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
This is reported by the Belarusian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, according to Censor.NET.
Composition of the delegations
On the Belarusian side, Prime Minister Alexander Turchin, KGB Chairman Ivan Tertel and Belarus’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Valentin Rybakov, are also taking part in the talks.
Accompanying Cole on his visit to Minsk were Christopher Panico, a representative of the State Department, and Sarah Ryan, an adviser on strategic communications to the White House Office of Special Envoys for Belarus and Ukraine.
Unfreezing of ‘Belaruskali’ accounts
During the meeting, Lukashenko called on the American side to ‘strictly’ comply with the agreements reached.
"The only thing is, this is not a demand, it is my request to you that we strictly adhere to the agreements on our part and on the part of the United States of America… We have reached many agreements regarding our economic relations," Lukashenko’s press service quotes him as saying.
As can be seen from the video footage of the meeting published by the press office, Oleksandr Turchyn raised the issue of the $43–44 million belonging to ‘Belaruskali’ that has been frozen at Citibank in the US.
John Cole replied that the American side had already approached Citibank regarding the unfreezing of the account.
The US’s efforts to secure the release of political prisoners
In August, John Cole said that he would be travelling to Belarus in mid-September to secure the release of further political prisoners.
"We secured the release of 500 people, and then a further 200 or so were pardoned. So the actual figure is around 700–800 people. I hope to bring that number up to a thousand soon," said the envoy.
According to Radio Free Europe’s Belarusian service, 646 people are known to have been released over the past two years, but not all of them are political prisoners.
The process of the mass release of political prisoners, following negotiations between Lukashenko and Donald Trump’s administration, began in 2025.
What led up to
It should be noted that John Cole, US President Donald Trump’s Special Representative for Belarus, has visited Belarus on several occasions. Previous talks took place in March 2026.
