The chief of a top trans-Atlantic security grouping has visited Belarus for the first time in years. The country’s authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has sought to normalize ties with the West. Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Secretary-General Feridun Sinirlioglu visited Belarus to attend an international security conference and met with Lukashenko on Tuesday. Sinirlioglu’s visit marks the first such trip by the OSCE’s chief since 2019. Lukashenko has governed the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades. Belarus has been sanctioned repeatedly by Western countries both for its crackdown on dissent and for allowing Moscow to use its territory for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.