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The foreign ministers of the European Union met Oct. 13 in Luxembourg to agree to suspend sanctions against the Belarusian leadership for six months.

Relations between the West and Belarus deteriorated in the mid-1990s when Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko began banning Western diplomats from the country. This action led to a suspension of Belarusian relations with the European Union and eventually the United States. Currently, there are 40 Belarusian political figures, including Lukashenko, under Western travel bans and asset-freezing orders.

This diplomatic spat showed that Belarus was closed to Westernization following the fall of the Soviet Union. Today, Belarus remains politically and economically isolated, though it maintains ties to Russia. To Moscow, Belarus is one of two remaining buffers between Russia and Europe, which is one reason Russia keeps the much smaller country under its thumb.

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