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Lukashenka notes close economic ties with Russia

Alyaksandr Lukashenka noted close economic ties between Belarus and Russia when meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday, and said that there was no “double meaning” behind the talks.

“Nobody is going to split apart the economies of Belarus and Russia,” the RIA Novosti quoted the Belarusian leader as saying at the Russian presidential residence in Zavidovo. “Belarus, by one way or another, provides some 10 million people in Russia with jobs. We cooperate very much with Russia. Giants such as the MAZ and the BelAZ and other enterprises of ours buy up to 70 percent of their components from Russia for the final production stages in Belarus. Cooperation is the common good around the world. We have agreed that we will maintain this cooperation.”

Mr. Lukashenka recalled the most recent session of the Belarusian-Russian Union State’s Supreme State Council held in Moscow on February 3, saying that the delegations “took the most decisive steps for the first time” and “reached an agreement on all matters for the first time.”

Mr. Medvedev noted the “informal nature” of his talks with the Belarusian leader and suggested “having a walk and discussing matters of concern.”

He said that his meetings with Mr. Lukashenka had become frequent and shared the opinion that the session of the Supreme State Council had been “very substantial, perhaps, as never before in the previous two years.”
Mr. Medvedev said that the session had yielded “a number of serious agreements of the economic, humanitarian and regional natures.” “As any agreements, they should be transformed from paper material into real contracts, supplies and decisions on specific matters,” he said.

“We could look at the agenda of agreements that have been reached and talk about international and regional problems, which such informal meetings allow doing,” Mr. Medvedev was quoted as saying. //BelaPAN