US President Joe Biden met with Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tihanovskaya in Vilnius
US President Joe Biden met Wednesday with exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tihanovskaya in Vilnius, where a NATO summit largely devoted to the war in Ukraine was taking place, the White House announced, AFP and Agerpres reported.
During the meeting with the opposition, Joe Biden stressed "the United States' continued commitment to defending and promoting human rights, including freedom of expression, free and transparent elections in Belarus," the US executive said in a statement.
Svetlana Tihanovskaya, whose husband is imprisoned in Belarus, became the leader of the opposition in the Moscow-allied country, which has been ruled with an iron fist by Aleksandr Lukashenko since 1994, during the disputed 2020 presidential election.
Like thousands of her compatriots, she is in exile to escape the regime's repression.
Lukashenko's regime is increasingly isolated after its brutal repression of demonstrations and allowing Russia to use Belarusian territory to launch its offensive against Ukraine.
Joe Biden, who attended the NATO summit on Tuesday and Wednesday, also met Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte and stressed the "strong bilateral relationship" between the two countries.
The US president continues his European tour, which began on Monday with a visit to London, and arrived in Finland on Wednesday evening for a 24-hour visit to Russia's neighbour, which joined NATO in April.
