Belarusian lawmaker blasts US over state secretary’s remarks :: Charter'97 :: News

Sergei Kostyan, deputy chairman of the international affairs committee in the National Assembly’s House of Representatives, lashed out at the United States for renewing its criticism of Aleksandr Lukashenko’s government.

Speaking earlier this week, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described Belarus as “the last remaining true dictatorship in the heart of Europe” where the time has come for a change.

“I have always said that a dictatorship of order and stability is better than a dictatorship of fascism that has been established in the United States,” Mr. Kostyan, secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, told BelaPAN.

The lawmaker stressed that there was nothing new in the remark. “The US has constantly made such statements, but they’d better devote more attention to what is happening in their country,” he said.

“The US had repeatedly named the Belarusian regime a dictatorship before,” said Sergei Kalyakin, leader of the opposition Belarusian Party of Communists. “But these remarks were made ahead of the state secretary’s meeting with the Russian president. That means that the Belarusian issue was discussed during the meeting and will likely be on the agenda of a forthcoming meeting between the Russian and US presidents in Moscow,” the politician told BelaPAN.