"The Council has suspended for four months the asset freeze and travel ban applying to 170 individuals and the asset freeze applying to three entities in Belarus. This decision was taken in response to the release of all Belarusian political prisoners on August 22 and in the context of improving EU-Belarus relations," an official announcement said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Lukashenko released from jail six opposition leaders less than two months before presidential elections in Belarus this year.
Among the freed opponents was Mikola Statkevich, a former presidential candidate imprisoned since 2010.
Statkevich, now aged 58, was a rival candidate in that disputed election, winning just one percent of the vote. He was sentenced in 2010 to six years in jail for allegedly organising mass street protests against Lukashenko's victory.
Another of the freed opponents, Mikola Rubsev, was arrested in the 2010 protests while wearing a t-shirt calling for Lukashenko to go. The other four men in detention were accused of belonging to an anarchist group that clashed with the local KGB, successor of the Soviet secret police.
Lukashenko won his fifth term on October 11, 2015, with a landslide 83.5% of the vote.
