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VILNIUS/HELSINKI, Aug 30, BNS – The Baltic and Nordic countries believe that public proposals of Belarus' hard-line President Alexander Lukashenko to sit at one table could be considered only after the regime releases all political prisoners, Lithuania's Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis said after meeting his counterparts in Helsinki.

"It is our opinion that nobody will sit at the table until release of political prisoners," the minister said in a telephone interview to BNS from Helsinki on Tuesday.

In his words, the shared opinion of the eight Baltic and Nordic countries was officially stated by the foreign minister of Finland, as a coordinating country. The Finnish diplomacy chief issued a communique, urging the Belarusian regime to release all political prisoners without delay.

On Monday, Lukashenko, often labeled as authoritarian by Western democracies, made a public address to representatives of all political camps, inviting them to work out a joint plan of actions that would help improve the situation in his country.

"As the head of state, I urge all sober-minded people who love their country, whichever political camp they belong to, to gather at a round table, to look each other in the eye and to assess realistically who is worth what and what can be done to improve the situation in the country effectively," Lukashenko said in Minsk on Monday.

Furthermore, he proposed that the European Union (EU), other European and international structures and Russia should send their envoys, Russia's Interfax news agency said.

Among participants of the annual meeting in Helsinki were foreign ministers of Lithuania, Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Iceland and Estonia, as well as Danish and Norwegian diplomats.

The Belarusian regime has recently come under severe criticism from the West for severe actions against the opposition following the December 2010 presidential elections. In August, Lithuania and other European countries censured the Minsk decision to arrest prominent human rights activist Ales Belyatsky.