MINSK, 4 October (BelTA) - Western sanctions are causing a global commodity crisis which painfully affects the population of those countries that have imposed these restrictive measures, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Belarus to Finland and concurrently to Denmark Aleksei Samosuyev said in an interview with Denmark's second largest newspaper Jyllands-Posten, BelTA has learned.
The head of the diplomatic mission stressed that the West uses illegal economic sanctions to strangle the Belarusian state. But such methods also affect Western citizens. "Western sanctions create, among other things, a global commodity crisis which painfully affects the population of the very countries that imposed these restrictive measures," he said.
As an example, the Belarusian ambassador cited the acute shortage of wood pellets which many Danes use to heat their homes. "In recent years, Belarus has been a major supplier of this product to Denmark. Now, due to the EU sanctions against the entire commodity group, Denmark has to purchase pellets in other countries and at much higher prices," he explained, proposing to remove the Belarusian wood raw materials from the list of EU sanctions in order to strengthen energy security.
"However, it seems that Western politicians are not concerned about these problems at all. They are more concerned about how to satisfy their own exorbitant geopolitical ambitions than how to solve the pressing problems of their people," the ambassador said.
He noted that Belarus does not accept communication with the EU from the position of ultimatums and sanctions pressure: "We are our own nation, have our own culture and lifestyle. We don't want the EU to lecture us. In Belarus, we respect your principles, customs and other things, but the EU is not willing to, at least, understand our way of life. It's very sad."
