LUXEMBOURG — The EU on Monday put a visa ban on Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and 30 other senior officials in protest at his re-election last month after voting international observers said was rigged, and for cracking down on the opposition and its supporters.

The ban was imposed at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers without debate, diplomats said. They said further steps -- such as a freezing of assets in the EU of the Belarusian leadership -- remain possible.

Lukashenko and 30 others are banned from travelling to any of the 25 EU states on the grounds that the leaders are "responsible for the violations of international electoral standards and international human rights law, as well as for the crackdown on civil society and democratic opposition,'' the foreign ministers said in a statement.

Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said the move "sends a strong message'' the EU is targeting the Belarus leadership, not its people.

"Of course, we want to keep the people of Belarus on our side, so we will try to cultivate relations with people of the opposition,'' he told reporters.

The ban marked the first time the EU has prohibited the head of state of a neighbouring country from visiting the union. It has taken the same steps against the leaders of Zimbabwe and Myanmar.

The EU already had banned six Belarusian officials.

The foreign ministers did not act on a demand by the European Parliament to end recognition of Lukashenko as president.

Lukashenko, who has been called Europe's last dictator, won 83 per cent of the vote and a third consecutive term according to the official results of last month's elections, declared by the EU and the United States undemocratic and fraudulent.

Opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich won 6.1 per cent of the vote.

Milinkevich, who held talks with legislators at the EU assembly last week, had called for hundreds of officials to be put on the visa blacklist.