French president Emmanuel Macron has said he is in favour of inviting Belarus opposition politicians to next month's G7 summit, if the British hosts agree, reports RFI.
The proposal comes against a background of international outrage over Belarus's diversion of a Ryanair flight on Sunday and the arrest of a dissident journalist on board.
On Tuesday, exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya called on the G7 and the US to ramp up pressure on Belarus's leader Alexander Lukashenko.
She asked for the Belarusian opposition to be invited to next month's G7 summit in Britain, an initiative that sources close to France's President Emmanuel Macron said Paris supported.
President Alexander Lukashenko sparked international outrage by dispatching a fighter jet Sunday to intercept a flight from Athens to Vilnius carrying blogger Roman Protasevich and his partner Sofia Sapega.
The forced landing of the plane in the Belarus capital Minsk over a supposed bomb threat led several EU-based airlines, including Air France, to opt out of flying over Belarusian airspace.