MINSK, 4 January (BelTA) – I hope that Belarus-India cooperation will be given a new momentum, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he set major goals for Mikhail Kasko, the newly appointed ambassador to India, on 4 January, BelTA has learned.
Until now Mikhail Kasko has been Chairman of Bellesbumprom Concern, and the president made a special mention of this point: “Mikhail Mikhailovich, as for you, I have agreed to your appointment. But I have some complaints to mention. You know about the state your ministry is in today. I would very much hate to think that my suspicions about them trying to move you quietly to another position are confirmed in the future. I very much hope that your work in India (you have the knowledge of a foreign language - English) will bear significant fruit.”
“India is a huge country. I cannot be satisfied with the state of affairs we have in the Belarusian-Indian relations. I will tell you frankly: we have degraded in our relations with India,” the head of state said. “India is not an easy area of work. You, as a practical person, although you have not done very well in Bellesbumprom, can use your experience in the Indian direction. God forbid you however to think that this is a vacation for you or that you are moved somewhere aside. No. You are moving further.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko added that certain officials were in charge of the development of relations with key foreign economic partners. For example, Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko is responsible for cooperation with the Russian Federation, while First Vice Premier Nikolai Snopkov is in charge of cooperation with China. As for India, back then the late Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei was tasked with developing a plan of action in this direction. Now this task has been entrusted to the current Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Aleinik.
“I cannot say that we are working to the full there, and it is our very important [foreign economic] partner. We can easily sell what we produce to China, Russia, and some far away countries. India is a huge market, and we have been represented there before, we have been working there since the Soviet Union times. We need to identify the main areas of work where we can do something, where we can be useful to India. This is the basis of this plan,” the president said.
The head of state instructed the new ambassador and the minister of foreign affairs to consider the relevant issues. “It is not going to be easy, of course. We need to build the foundation of our relations with India. We, of course, will not be able to operate in India at the scale we do in China. We have worked less there, and, after all, we do not have the size of the economy China or Russia have to operate across the globe. It is enough for us to define the main areas of work with Indians,” the head of state said.
The head of state listed a number of areas with the prospects for developing relations with India: “They have good medicines. We need them. They also have certain technologies. They can also do something more that process diamonds. This is also important for us. We give a big priority to this. There are goods that we can sell there. We can even set up enterprises there based on our technologies. All the areas of activity are known. We just need to decide on our next steps.”
