Yesterday Russian president Vladimir Putin voiced one of his most loud foreign policy statements. Mr.Putin rebuked the Belarusian leadership in an attempt to turn the Russian-Belarusian Union into some USSR type of structure. He added that there would be no return to the USSR. This is but a response to Alexander Lukashenko, who doesn’t consent on the Russian conditions of unification. This declaration is also a totally new landmark in the Kremlin’s foreign policy.

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The state secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Gennady Nevyglas will pay a visit to Iran on June 16-18. The visit will be a scheduled event after a similar visit to Belarus of the Iranian Security Secretary Hasan Rukhani in January 2000.

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In 2001 Russia occupied the first spot in the list of the sellers of conventional weapons, outrunning USA, reads the Thursday annual report of the Stockholm international institute SIPRI Yearbook 2002, reports BBC News.

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Participants of the international conference “Independence of media in post-communist states”, which took place in Moscow under the auspices of the International confederation of journalist unions, have unanimously passed a special resolution over the criminal persecution of journalists of the Belarusian newspaper “Pagonya”, shut down by the authorities. The text of the resolution reads that “the prison incarceration cannot be applied against journalists, who carry out their professional duties”.

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According to the Minister of information of Belarus Mikhail Podgainy, on June 15 in the “Belsoyuzpechat” news agent’s network there will appear “Moskovsky Komsomolets” issue with a print run of 10,000 copies. The editor of the first issue is Igor Osinsky (a few years ago he was editor-in-chief of the “Sovietskaya Belorussiya” and later – of “Belorussiya”).

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Deputy director of “Grodnotorgservice” was arrested for bribe-taking. Meantime, the employees of the Committee for combating organized criminality and corruption in the Grodno region, which provided evidence for instituting legal action, continue to disclose new facts. During a search at the man’s apartment they confiscated 4,650 dollars, the origin of which is currently being defined by the investigators.

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As deemed by deputy of the “house of representative of the national assembly” of Belarus Sergei Kostyan, “Vladimir Putin is performing Bush’s will”. “That’s it. And there can be no other evaluation,” – he said. Kostyan voiced this commentary on June 13 in the evening newscast of NTV, assessing the recent speech of Vladimir Putin on the Russia-Belarus integration. The deputy said also that “Putin doesn’t fulfill the will of the Russian nation. If so, I wonder what country he’s a president of or wants to be president of?”

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The Minister of culture and Islamic orientation of Iran Ahmad Al-Jamei is currently on an official visit in Minsk. On June 13 the Belarusian Foreign Minister Mikhail Khvostov met with the high Iranian guest. The meeting also attracted the Minister of culture of Belarus Leonid Gulyako. Both Belarusians and Iranians pointed out a significant influence on the cooperation between the two countries of Alexander Lukashenko’s official visit to Iran in 1998. The Belarusian side noted that the visit is an important preparatory step before the coming to Belarus of the Iranian president Mohammad Khattami.

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In Teheran there ended an international conference “Iran: transit possibilities 2002”, upheld by the Russian Ministry of transportation. ABN reports from the Ministry’s press-service that the forum attracted representatives from over 20 countries of the region. Upon the forum’s outcomes they passed a common declaration on the necessity to cooperate in the sphere of transportation and transit, sophistication of the national transport structures in connection with the looming increase in the transit of cargos within the framework of the international transport corridor “North-South”. Except for the three countries (Russia, Iran, India) – the founders of the corridor – five more countries stated their desire to join in the project – Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Bulgaria.

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Russian “Itera-holding” company reduced on Thursday its regular supplies of natural gas to the Belarusian monopolist “Beltransgas” due to 50% payments’ indebtedness for the supplied gas. The problem is that despite the reached agreements the “Beltransgas” doesn’t provide the current payments for the previous natural gas supplies and fails to keep to the debts payment schedule established last year. By June 10 the total indebtedness amounted to $24mln.

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OSCE award “For journalism and democracy” will be granted to the famous journalist Pavel Sheremet and his Austrian colleague Fridrich Orter. The award is annually given to the journalists, whose work contributes to the promotion of human rights and democracy values. The final ceremony will take place on July 6 in Berlin during another OSCE PA session.

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Russian president Vladimir Putin strongly criticized Belarusian approaches towards the solution of issues, associated with the integration between the two states. In particular, when attending the Research center for heart surgery the Russian incumbent publicly shared his dissatisfaction with the Belarus’ vision of the union state, reports Strana.ru. In his opinion, Minsk plans to create “some USSR type of structure”.

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Yesterday Russian president Vladimir Putin voiced one of his most loud foreign policy statements. Mr.Putin rebuked the Belarusian leadership in an attempt to turn the Russian-Belarusian Union into some USSR type of structure. He added that there would be no return to the USSR. This is but a response to Alexander Lukashenko, who doesn’t consent on the Russian conditions of unification. This declaration is also a totally new landmark in the Kremlin’s foreign policy.

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Recently Belarus insisted on Russia compensating them moral and economic losses, incurred after a frustration of plans to build a notorious gas pipeline around Ukraine. Instead, Moscow and Kiev agreed to set up a consortium by late summer, which would run the Ukrainian gas supply system, writes the Russian “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”.

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As we previously reported, on July 1, 2003 Poland intends to introduce a visa regime with regard for all categories of the Belarusian citizens without any exceptions. As said at the press-conference by deputy Foreign Minister of Belarus Alexander Gerasimenko, “usually when one country imposes some visa regulations, the neighboring one, after consultations, is passing adequate measures. Needless to say that right now we are discussing the problem with the Poles and will introduce same visa regime as well.”

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The Institute of religion and law (http://www.rlinfo.ru/) protests against the unauthorized application of their expert review of the draft law “On introducing changes and amendments into the Republic of Belarus’ Law “On the freedom of faith and religious organizations”. The project was passed in the first reading by the “house of representatives of the national assembly” of Belarus.

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