“What is happening there is just the beginning, I think. The power struggle will begin. The president has left, there is practically no government. Different ‘columns’ entered. Now there is a struggle for power. People hang, killed. We see these things going on. Someone is trying to look civilized: ‘look, we are not militants, we are wearing civilian clothes’. What is happening in Syria is a clash of the world’s major players. The Americans, the European Union, the Turks, the Russians and so on... The things began back in the day and this is how they ended. This is a lesson for us. We must determine our own fate. We must protect our country!” the head of state said.
“If we had failed in 2020, everyone would have been here by now. NATO, with the Americans behind it. They would encourage the Poles who have their own interest here, namely western Belarus, which they once had. Do we need it? We don't need it. We have survived and will build our country. I want peace,” Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasized.
Returning to the topic of Syria, Aleksandr Lukashenko noted that Belarus did not interfere in the processes and supported the legitimate authorities together with Russia and Iran. However, the country was once turned into a testing ground for large states pursuing their interests.
The president said he knew well not only President Bashar al-Assad, but also his father, the previous Syrian leader, Hafez al-Assad. “That was the man of calibre. He died a long time ago, and now they are tearing down the monuments to him. Yet he created the state. Rich in resources, oil and so on,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
He also mentioned other leaders: Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Fidel Castro in Cuba. “They [opponents in the West] poured buckets of dirt on them. They dubbed them dictators, barbarians, people killers and eaters. They called them lots of things. Because they could do nothing with them. I knew them well. They were tough people. They stood up for their people, for their state,” the president stated.
He gave his take on the personality of Bashar al-Assad with regard to the recent statement of the outgoing US President Joe Biden who said: "Assad’s dictatorship collapsed and that's it, people there..."
"What people? Poor, destitute. They turned the country... They completely destroyed it. Why would they call Bashar al-Assad a dictator? He is a doctor by profession, I have known him for a long time. We have had good personal relations. He is not a dictator. He treated people as a doctor. He never killed anyone," the Belarusian head of state assured.
Aleksandr Lukashenko shared a personal story about Bashar al-Assad. He once asked the Belarusian president to let his children come to Belarus where other Syrian kids were vacationing. "One is older, the other is younger. I remember his son coming to Belarus. I said: Sure thing, send them over here. He came here. I said to mine [youngest son] (he was 6-7 years old, he already knew how to ski): let's teach them how to ski. They hadn't seen skis before. We put them on skis. Listen, for half a day (I was there too) we couldn't get them from the ski track.”
"I hear Biden bad-mouthing. No one listens to him anymore. It's good that Trump, no matter how eccentric he is, said: ‘Stay away from it, it's none of our business.’ That’s what he keeps telling the Americans. This position is worthy of respect. We need to figure it out. But this is weird to tell Americans to stay away from it, as they have been there for a long time. The Americans want to be part of everything. That's why you see how all this is unfolding, how heads of state are being demonized. I'm familiar with this. You also have a ‘dictator’ running the country."
