VILNIUS: The United States will lift sanctions on Belarusian potash in the latest sign on a thaw between Washington and the isolated autocracy. John Coale, the US special envoy for Belarus, met the country’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko for talks in the Belarusian capital of Minsk on Friday and Saturday. A close ally of Russia, Minsk has faced Western isolation and sanctions for years.

WARSAW: A US envoy was in Minsk for talks with longtime Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko Friday, video from state media showed, as Washington pushes for prisoner releases in…

The U.S. envoy said that normalizing relations between Washington and Minsk was “our goal.”