President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko / Sergei Grits / AP

The decision of the EU Council on 29 October to suspend for 4 months (until 29 February 2016) restrictive measures against 170 individuals and 3 legal entities, for whom the ban on visas to the EU and the freezing of assets in European banks are temporarily lifted, was published in the EU Official Journal on Friday.

The list of these individuals and organizations includes Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. EU restrictive measures have been suspended against several key companies in the country, including arms exporter Beltechexport, military-industrial complex companies Beltech Holding and Spetspriborservis.

An EU Council communiqué published on Thursday said: "This decision was taken in response to the release of all Belarusian political prisoners on 22 August and in the context of improving EU-Belarus relations."

Belarusian President to be released from EU sanctions after re-election

Politics / International Affairs

The Kremlin has taken note of the EU's decision to suspend sanctions, Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov told Interfax. "We have always spoken at various levels in Russia about the unacceptability of sanctions rhetoric in general. This is not only about Lukashenko and Belarus, but about the unacceptability of using such methods in international relations in general," he noted.

Also on Friday, the US Treasury Department said that it would process most transactions of nine Belarusian companies under sanctions for six months starting on Saturday, October 31, the BBC reported . The US is taking steps "in light of the positive actions of the Belarusian authorities, who released all six political prisoners on August 22," said US State Department spokesman John Kirby. He noted that Belarus' actions "open the way for the development of commercial ties" and called on the country's authorities "to improve the situation with human rights and democracy."

In August, Lukashenko pardoned six prominent political prisoners, including 2010 Belarusian presidential candidate Nikolai Statkevich. Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland called the release an important step in the right direction, while EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said there had been significant progress in relations between Minsk and Brussels.

Lukashenko balances between the EU and Russia and is not the first to use the release of political opponents to establish contacts with the West. In particular, in August 2008, former presidential candidate Alexander Kozulin was released from prison, after which the US softened sanctions against enterprises of the Belneftekhim concern.

US eases sanctions against Belarus following EU