Lithuanian foreign minister refuses Lukashenko offer of talks on reopening border

By Andrius Sytas

VILNIUS/MOSCOW (Reuters) -Lithuania's foreign minister said he would refuse talks with Belarus on reopening their border, after its President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday ordered his foreign minister to open the negotiations.

Lithuania last month closed the two border crossings with its neighbour until the end of November in response to repeated incursions by weather balloons flying from Belarus that have disrupted air traffic and caused closures at Vilnius airport.

Lithuania says the balloons are flown by smugglers transporting contraband cigarettes and blames Belarus for not stopping the practice, calling it a form of "hybrid attack".

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"Lukashenko does not set the rules... My insistent recommendation to my government will be to not follow the route which they are trying to force on us," foreign minister Kestutis Budrys told Lithuanian news website 15min.lt.

"We are not left alone, we have full involvement of the USA", Budrys said, speaking from Washington and referring to his meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump's special envoy to Belarus, John Coale, on Monday.

Trump has increased U.S. engagement with the authoritarian state, sending multiple delegations to Minsk this year, while Lukashenko is seeking to repair relations with Washington after years of isolation and sanctions.

In September, Belarus freed 52 prisoners after an appeal from Trump. He had previously urged Lukashenko, who has been in power for more than 30 years, to release 1,400 detainees whom the U.S. leader has described as hostages.

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Belarusian state news agency Belta had earlier reported that Lukashenko had ordered the opening of negotiations after a meeting with his foreign minister, the head of the KGB and the head of the state border committee.

He told the foreign minister to "organise negotiations on the normalisation of the situation and the resumption of the full functioning of border crossing points on the joint border".

Belta quoted Lukashenko's press service as saying that the Lithuanian side had submitted proposals on Tuesday for resolving the situation.

Lukashenko has previously called the border closure a "crazy scam" and he accused the West of fighting a hybrid war against Belarus and Russia that was ushering in a new era of barbed-wire division.

Lithuania would reopen the border if the smugglers' balloons stop entering its airspace, said Budrys.

He added the border crossings would not be reopened until about 1,000 Lithuanian-owned trucks, halted in Belarus after the closure, were allowed to return.

(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Andrius Sytas and Gleb Stolyarov; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Alex Richardson)