Lukashenko in favor of restarting Belarusian-European relations

MINSK, 20 September (BelTA) – Belarus hopes for a restart of Belarusian-European relations on the basis of equal rights and mutual respect, said President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko as he accepted credentials from ambassadors of foreign nations on 20 September.

Accepting credentials from Maira Mora, ambassador and head of the European Union’s representative office in Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko said he hopes that Maira Mora’s considerable experience of diplomatic service in Latvia would allow her to take an active stance in the development of Belarusian-European relations, securing the restart of the relations on the basis of equal rights and mutual respect.

“Our western neighbor, the European Union, is a key partner in trade and economy, credits and investments, an important source of state-of-the-art technologies,” underlined Alexander Lukashenko.

In his words, Belarus and the European Union work together to protect Europe from modern threats and challenges. The two sides cooperate to fight transboundary crime, illegal migration, slave trade, illegal trade in arms and drugs.

Alexander Lukashenko said that the head of the European Union’s representative office knew the situation in Belarus well because she had been Latvia’s ambassador to Belarus before.

Addressing Maira Mora, Alexander Lukashenko said: “I hope you understand us and it is very good. Don’t trust anyone, who says we will use the so-called political prisoners as bargaining chips. If we can do something to alleviate their fate, for the sake of the European Union among other things, we will just go ahead and do it sincerely”.

“Trust me we are not in a situation where we have to beg for something,” said the President. “The first days after we went for drastic normalization of the currency situation have proven there is nothing like a crisis in Belarus. We now have to take care to prevent the exchange rate of the Belarusian ruble from falling fast to what we had before and it is likely to do just that”.

Alexander Lukashenko remarked: “We will get out of the situation without anyone’s aid”.

In turn, Maira Mora said “We will have things to talk about and to work on”.