Belarusian Foreign Minister Mikhail Khvastow said that...

Belarusian Foreign Minister Mikhail Khvastow said that he favours the idea of abandoning the death penalty, but stressed that the immediate abolition of capital punishment in Belarus would be premature.
Speaking at a House of Representatives hearing on the issue, the minister called for "a flexible step-by-step" approach.
Khvastow said: "If we are interested to regain a special guest status in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and become a member of the Council of Europe, we could look for mutually acceptable approaches to resolving the issues of death penalty abolition without flatly rejecting the conditions set [by the Council of Europe]."
A precondition for abandoning the death penalty should be a substantial improvement in socio-economic situation and living standards leading to a fall in crime, Khvastow said. He stressed the need to prepare society for the abolition of the capital punishment.