Lavrov: Russia has no need to meet with members of Belarus' Coordinating Council

MOSCOW, 2 September (BelTA) - Russia does not need to meet with members of the Coordinating Council of the Belarusian opposition, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov told the media after his meeting with Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei in Moscow on 2 September, BelTA has learned.

“We view Belarus as a sovereign state. We treat any structure that is set up there as a structure that must comply with the law. We do not know how the Coordinating Council was formed. Many of those who were declared members of this structure learned about it post facto. Some have already announced their withdrawal,” Sergei Lavrov said.

The Russian minister said that he does not want to give any assessments and pass verdicts. “Some names from the list announced as the composition of the Coordinating Council, are familiar to us. We associate those names with individuals who advocate the cultural gap with Russia, the use of the slogan of Belarusization to infringe on the Russian language. They speak in favor of less cooperation with the structures established in the post-Soviet space, up to and including the withdrawal from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, and the accession to NATO,” Sergei Lavrov said.

“We know about the statement of at least one of the members of the Coordinating Council that Russians are ‘a mean-spirited nation' and that ‘Belarus has never been Russia, Belarus has always been Poland'. These are the statements that were made by the current members of the Coordinating Council at the previous stages of their career. This characterizes the views of at least some of the participants in this process,” Sergei Lavrov said.

The minister also drew attention to the fact that there are still no clear explanations about the program posted on the website of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, which confirmed the anti-Russian focus. The program was quickly removed from the website. “There is no clear explanation of what has happened and what is actually the program of this council,” said Sergei Lavrov.

“Under these conditions, we believe that we have no need to meet with the representatives [of the Coordinating Council] until they form their structure in accordance with the Belarusian legislation. We work with the opposition in different countries, but only with the ones that operate within the legal field,” Sergei Lavrov said.

Sergei Lavrov provided another characteristic of the so-called Coordinating Council. “At the stage, when the first demonstrations and confrontation with law enforcement agencies took place, there were calls for law enforcement officers to change the oath, to ‘switch to the side of the people', as they put it, there were statements that such officers will be paid for it, will be given apartments. I believe this is a criminal offense,” Sergei Lavrov said.

“First, we want to understand what kind of people they are, who present themselves as the only protectors of the future of the Belarusian people,” Sergei Lavrov said.