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Belarus is ready to supply military systems to Venezuela, Lukashenka says

Alyaksandr Lukashenka said that Belarus is ready to supply military systems to Venezuela.

“Russia supplies arms to Venezuela and we cooperate with it in this sphere as far as we can,” the Belarusian leader said while meeting with a group of Russian reporters in Minsk on Friday.

According to him, when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was visiting Minsk, “he was shown what is manufactured in Belarus, including in the military sphere.”

“We have no closed areas for cooperation with Venezuela,” Mr. Lukashenka said. “If we need loans, we apply to Venezuela. If we need to sell our products, they give us priorities in their market.”

When asked whether Belarus had really signed a contract to supply $1 billion worth of military equipment to Venezuela, Mr. Lukashenka said that he was not aware of such a contract.

When Belarus was experiencing problems regarding oil supplies from Russia, Venezuela allowed Belarus to extract oil from its fields. “I’ve been asking Russia for 13 years to allow us to extract oil and gas on their territory, just as they have allowed this to be done by other foreign companies,” Mr. Lukashenka said. “At a meeting in Sochi, Putin agreed with me, but eight years have passed since Putin became president and we’ve never settled this matter.” //BelaPAN