Pompeo urges Europe's young democracies to embrace freedoms

PRAGUE (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday called upon the young democracies of central and Eastern Europe to embrace their hard-won freedoms as they face threats from Russia, China and others while seeing backsliding closer to home, including in Belarus.

America's top diplomat said the rise in authoritarianism was not an abstract trend focused on far-away capitals such as Moscow and Beijing but was apparent also in Europe and its backyard, notably in Belarus, which has been wracked by unrest since its disputed presidential election Sunday.

“We see that authoritarianism didn’t die in 1989 or in 1991. The storm was still there. It was simply over the horizon. While we wrote the epitaph on those types of regimes, we now know that it was premature,” Pompeo said in a speech to Czech lawmakers. He and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Bibas, at a separate event earlier, had denounced the postelection violence and repression in Belarus.

“We will continue to speak about the risks to the Belarusian people,” Pompeo said. “We want them to have freedom in the same way that people do across the world.” The Trump administration has been criticized for its own approach to human rights, but Pompeo said the United States would remain firm and constant in its support for the rule of law and fundamental freedoms.

The administration has sought to improve long-strained relations with Belarus, and when Pompeo visited the country in early February, he was the first secretary of state to do so in 26 years. The U.S. recently nominated the first ambassador to Minsk in a decade.

Taking a strong line, Babis said recent events in Belarus were “unacceptable.” “It was shocking to see what has happened,” he said. ”To see something like that happening in Europe is so shocking so close to us. It is...