Belarus opposition leader to ask Merkel about upping pressure on Lukashenko

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya says in interview that people can no longer live under dictatorship, as more 100,000 protest on Sunday

The Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya will meet Angela Merkel in Berlin on Tuesday, as the standoff in Belarus increasingly takes on a geopolitical dimension, becoming one more bone of contention between Russia and the west.

Tikhanovskaya said she will ask the German chancellor about her potential participation as a mediator" in talks between protest leaders and the government of the embattled autocrat Alexander Lukashenko, who has been backed by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and has flatly refused to participate in negotiations.