NUCLEAR POWER IN BELARUS AND WORLDWIDE
MOSCOW, 14 December (BelTA) - Belarus and Russia have consistently opposed the attempts to falsify history and to rehabilitate Nazi criminals, First Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Sergei Chizhik said at the Belarusian-Russian expert and media forum "Unity of the peoples of Belarus and Russia: from the shared past to the shared future", BelTA has learned.
Sergei Chizhik stated: the forum is taking place in a difficult and even tragic time. "Tremendous tectonic shifts are happening in international relations," he said. “The map of Europe and the world is being redrawn. The question of friends and allies in a turbulent world has become extremely important."
"Russia and Belarus share a centuries-old history, cultural and spiritual traditions," Sergei Chizhik emphasized. “The common historical destinies of the peoples of the two countries is highlighted in the preamble of the Union State Treaty. The need to preserve the shared historical memory has been repeatedly pointed out by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia and Belarus have consistently opposed the attempts to falsify the history of the two countries, to revise the results of the Second World War and glorify Nazi criminals and their accomplices, to desecrate the memory of the victims of the Second World War and the fallen soldiers of the anti-Hitler coalition countries, to spread the ideas of racial superiority and religious intolerance, aggressive nationalism.”
According to the scientist, relations with Russia are the most important priority of Belarus' foreign policy. The Treaty on the Union State was signed on 8 December 1999. “The provisions of the treaty provided for joint steps of the two states to align and unite their legal, economic, financial, customs and other systems, form interstate and, after the adoption of the Constitutional Act of the Union State, supranational power structures. However, the Treaty on the Union State provides not a mechanical fusion of the two states or absorption of one state by another, but their union for the implementation of mutually beneficial tasks, while retaining the status of the subjects of international law for Belarus and Russia,” said Sergei Chizhik.
In his words, the purpose of the forum is to promote the history of the Union State, to preserve the historical memory of the societies of Russia and Belarus, as well as to counter attempts to falsify the joint history of the two countries, to strengthen humanitarian ties and spiritual and moral guidelines of the brotherly peoples for future generations. “The event will contribute to strengthening the foundations of the Union State, protection of national security of Russia and Belarus, ensuring peaceful and democratic development of the brotherly peoples of the Union State, preservation and harmonization of the historical memory of the Union State,” Sergei Chizhik concluded.
Attending the event were representatives of Belarusian and Russian state authorities, scientific institutions, higher educational institutions, archives, and educational organizations. They analyzed the current state of Belarusian-Russian cooperation in historical memory preservation and discussed possibilities of implementing joint educational, exhibition and other initiatives in the humanitarian sector. The forum was organized by the Standing Committee of the Union State, the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, the Russian Historical Memory Foundation and the international media group Russia Today.
