MOSCOW, 23 June (BelTA) – Belarus' rapprochement with the European Union provokes no allergic reaction or jealousy in Russia, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov told the Belarusian media on 23 June, BelTA has learned.
“As for the rapprochement between Belarus and the European Union, we have no allergic reaction, no jealousy. It is a natural aspiration of all countries, including the Russian Federation, to seek mutually beneficial relations with all their neighbors,” Sergei Lavrov noted.
He said that there has been no cooling of the relations with the European Union on part of Russia. “We still believe that Russia and the European Union, same as Belarus and the EU, and our other neighbors with the EU, should cooperate as equals in a transparent and candid manner. We never force our partners in the post-Soviet space to choose between Russia and the West. Our western colleagues have repeatedly pushed post-Soviet countries to make a choice,” the minister said.
Sergei Lavrov pointed out that Russia would not want the participants of the Eastern Partnership initiative to face such a choice. “From the very start, we were ready to cooperate with the Eastern Partnership project, invited Brussels to look for projects that would bring together the countries of the EU, the states that are the focus of the EaP, and the Russian Federation within this program. Unfortunately, little has changed. But we do not dramatize the situation, even though we know that some want to again transform this process, essentially designed to bring about positive results, into some anti-Russian project,” the Russian minister emphasized.
Sergei Lavrov is convinced that considering its geographical location, Belarus not just has the right to develop good relations with its neighbors. It must do so. “We can only welcome the fact that the neighbors are waking up and start moving away from their position of sanctions and pressure in their relations with Belarus. I hope they do this not in an attempt to tear Belarus away from Russia, but just because they have realized that any sanctions are a road to nowhere, that they never bring anything to anyone, including to those who initiate them,” the minister added.
The interview of the Russian minister of foreign affairs was timed to coincide with the celebration of 25 years of diplomatic relations between Belarus and Russia.
