A TRAVEL ban on young Belarusian victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster visiting Ireland may be lifted soon, according to campaigners.
The Belarusian ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Senko, said in Brussels yesterday: "Our primary belief is that this matter will be resolved in good time and that a decision concerning these issues will be taken in the very near future, and possibly this week. There is a positive mood in Minsk towards Irish partners.
"The government of Belarus regards Ireland and NGO groupings as a concrete partner."
Mr Senko was speaking after a meeting in Brussels with Fianna Fáil MEP Eoin Ryan and members of Chernobyl Aid Ireland.
Mr Ryan said he was confident that a deal would be done in the next few days. "They have had problems with Belgium, Italy and the US, but they were definitely signalling an exception will be made for Ireland," he said.
Ireland takes in about 3,500 child victims of the Chernobyl disaster a year, but in August the Belarusian government announced that it was going to revise arrangements after an incident in Italy when a family refused to return a child. A similar incident also occurred this year in America.
According to Liam Grant, chief executive of Chernobyl Aid Ireland, the Belarusian government wanted to lower the age limit of children eligible to travel from 18 to 14 and cap the number of visits a child could make to any one country.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin held talks with his Belarusian counterpart during a meeting of EU foreign minister in Luxembourg last month as part of intensive contacts between the countries on the issue.
Mr Grant, whose organisation is looking to bring about 100 children to Ireland this Christmas, has also called on the Government here to make concessions and do away with complicated visa requirements for the children. "It would really speed things up, it would be a nice gesture if they did it."
Since the end of October, he said, the only option for Belarussian children to obtain an Irish visa had been to fill out long application forms online - but most do not have access to the internet from their remote villages.
If the Belarusian government does make a decision as expected within the next few days, the children should start to arrive at the end of December and will stay for up to a month.
"The main benefit for these children is the freedom they have in Ireland," Mr Grant added.