Republic

MINSK, 14 December (BelTA) – President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko suggests creating a permanent mechanism for cooperation and information sharing between Belarus and the USA. The Belarusian head of state put forward the initiative as he met with representatives of the top USA analytical centers on 14 December. “I hope that our contacts will continue and that your first visit to Belarus will not be the last one. We should probably think about creating some permanent mechanism for the bilateral exchange of information and for cooperation,” said the Belarusian head of state. Alexander Lukashenko said he is confident that if they looked closely, representatives of the top USA analytical centers would see that Belarus and the USA have many common interests and priorities. “We understand perfectly well that the States is a powerful empire with global interests and global influence. In your country many people believe that Belarus should be somewhere in the peanut gallery in the system of these interests,” said Alexander Lukashenko. He attributed the situation to the fact that Belarus has no oil or gas, the country does not create international security problems or challenges geopolitical ambitions of the United States of America. Yet Alexander Lukashenko underlined that Belarus is a reliable partner of the USA in fighting major challenges of the 21st century: international crime and terrorism, illegal drugs trade and slave trade. “Belarus fully shares approaches of the antiterrorism coalition and contributes a lot to the realization of its goals. As a member of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council we do what we can to help resolve the Afghanistan problem, providing our infrastructure for enabling NATO’s transit cargo deliveries,” remarked the Belarusian head of state. The President stressed that both Belarus and the USA are interested in regional security and nuclear non-proliferation. “We have made a considerable contribution to building a nuclear-free world. We deliberately renounced the nuclear weaponry we had,” said Alexander Lukashenko. He also mentioned the Belarus-USA agreement to remove Belarus’ reserves of highly enriched uranium. Belarus and USA reached the agreement at the OSCE summit in Astana. In turn, the USA declared its support for Belarus’ peaceful uses of nuclear energy. “We highly appreciate this step of the American side,” said Alexander Lukashenko. Janusz Bugajski, director of the New European Democracies project, chief research officer of the Europe program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, delivered a letter from former US senator Sam Nunn to Alexander Lukashenko. In his letter Sam Nunn thanked the Belarusian head of state for taking the lead in removing highly enriched uranium from Belarus. He also said he hopes that the President of Belarus would be able to personally participate in cooperation in the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and the destruction of weapons of mass destruction. Speaking about his work in Belarus, Janusz Bugajski said that the team is supposed to get more facts about the country and its development, to better understand the country’s problems and hopes, to see ways that can improve Belarus-USA relations. “We would like to see ways, as you say it, to convert the equal distance approach into practical deeds. Partnership but not domination, cooperation but not subordination are the true foundation for equal cooperation of Belarus with any country, not only the USA. It is something we would like to help implement,” said the director of the New European Democracies project.

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