Quote:Kellogg helped score a win for the peace efforts by the Trump administration.

While the situation in the Middle East keeps escalating, with unpredictable developments ahead, there are many other aspects of the US foreign policy unfolding, and some bring a great deal of hope of a better tomorrow.

After a visit by Donald J. Trump’s Special Envoy Keith Kellogg to Belarusian leader Lukashenko, no less than 14 political prisoners have been released, including Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a leading Belarus opposition figure.

Tsikhanouski was freed on yesterday (22), after more than five years in prison. He was driven across the border into Lithuania and reunited with his wife Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, leader of the exiled Belarus opposition.

Five Belarusians, three Poles, two Latvians, two Japanese, one Estonian and one Swede were freed in total.

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Reuters reported:

“Lukashenko issued pardons for all those released on Saturday in response to a U.S. request, his spokeswoman Natalya Eismont said. In a statement, she said the Belarusians who were freed had been ‘convicted of extremist and terrorist activity’.

She said the decision to release Tsikhanouski was ‘taken by the president strictly on humanitarian considerations with the aim of family reunification’.”

“[Spokeswoman] Eismont said Kellogg’s talks with Lukashenko had begun on Friday evening and lasted 6-1/2 hours over dinner, covering the Ukraine conflict, the Middle East, relations between Russia, Belarus and China, and sanctions policy.

‘It was night when it ended’, she said. ‘The subjects discussed were as current as can be imagined. They talked about things that concern the entire world’.”

“European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the release was ‘fantastic news and a powerful symbol of hope for all the political prisoners suffering under the brutal Lukashenka (sic) regime’.”