MOSCOW, 23 June (BelTA) – There is a need to take stock of the implementation of the Belarus-Russia Union State Treaty, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Belarusian journalists.
“The Union State Treaty of 1998 and the agreement on equal rights for citizens of Russia and Belarus, which was adopted a year earlier, were the real bricks in the building of our Union State that enable us to derive great benefits from our advanced integration plans and decisions. Therefore, the Union State is, of course, our main achievement. Although a number of plans that have been outlined in the Union State Treaty are yet to be carried out. In any case, we need to take stock of the progress in the implementation of the treaty. This is what we suggested to our Belarusian friends,” Sergei Lavrov said.
According to the Russian minister, Belarusians and Russians were the first to recognize the negative side of the Soviet Union break-up. “This encouraged the two countries to take a step towards integration, which was later supported by other CIS countries,” he noted.
Sergei Lavrov noted that the Belarusian-Russian cooperation rests not only on interaction between Minsk and Moscow but also on interregional ties. The two countries have common defense tasks, extensive humanitarian and cultural ties, and close cooperation in foreign policy matters.
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.
