Lukashenko may meet with Yushchenko next February or March

Mr. Baloha met with Gennady Nevyglas, head of the Belarusian Presidential Administration, in Minsk on December 14.
The officials also held talks in Kyiv on November 30. Mr. Baloha said after the talks that his country "is interested in the development of neighborly, mutually beneficial relations with Belarus and ready for a constructive political dialog on all aspects of bilateral and multilateral cooperation."

Messrs. Lukashenko and Yushchenko have never held a face-to-face meeting, with their contacts restricted to CIS summits. They were expected to meet in October 2005 but the meeting was postponed until April 2006 and later cancelled altogether.
In May 2006, the Ukrainian leader criticized Minsk for its reluctance to ratify the May 12, 1997 interstate treaty on the state border between the two neighboring nations.

"How can we be called neighbors with a country that is in the CIS and is a member of other international institutions if the border issue has not been settled with it? That will never do. This does not suit us. We put forward proposals on demarcation and delimitation, but they are rejected," Mr. Yushchenko said.

Belarus has delayed the ratification of the treaty for years, conditioning this on the repayment of Ukraine's debt, which Minsk estimates at $80 million to $150 million. Kyiv has repeatedly warned its northern neighbor that it will never agree to regard the debt as a state one. // BelaPAN