MINSK, 28 February (BelTA) – The deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus is a forced defensive step in response to the NATO military build-up, the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, BelTA has learned.
“Taking into account that the majority of the EU countries are members of NATO, the world's most heavily armed military and political organization, the continuous disproportionate build-up, the EU’s condemnation of Belarus’ implementation of its sovereign right to deploy nuclear weapons on its territory carried out in full compliance with international law gives us grounds to state that our forced defensive actions are absolutely justified,” the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed.
The ministry also emphasized that the European Union's reference to the Budapest Memorandum does not stand up to any criticism. Thus, Article 1 of the document obliges the guarantor countries, represented by the United States and the UK, to “respect the Republic of Belarus’ independence and sovereignty in the existing borders”. Article 3 establishes that the guarantor countries will “refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by the Republic of Belarus of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind”.
“In this regard we would like to remind them that the first illegal economic sanctions against Belarus were imposed by the EU more than 20 years ago. All these years the Western countries resolutely refused to discuss the direct violations of the commitments under the document. Some even stated that it had no legal force for them,” the ministry said.
