Lukashenko is Ready to Turn to the West to Retaliate Russia :: Charter'97 :: News

“Unexpected and sharp thrust was made by Alexander Lukashenko after recently attained compromise with Moscow on Russian oil deliveries, the “Vremya Novostey” Russian newspaper reports. When voting the local elections he assailed Russia for its behavior in the oil clash with his country and promised to turn to the West. “They are forcing us to join the Russian Federation but being the first President of Belarus I am not going to burry our country’s sovereignty and independence”, he declared.

The Belarusian leader stated that viewpoints of Minsk and Moscow differed in terms of “ the union state” construction. “After all consultations and talks I have understood that our approaches and concepts regarding the union state construction differ. The union must be built on the principles of equality,” Lukashenko declared. The Russian party dared to trample under foot upon the union and to derail the whole country with its fraternal people… If every year they are going to grab the valve , any union is out of question.”, considers he.

Alexander Lukashenko also hinted at a possible new confrontation between the two states and promised to introduce “duties and a certain payment for the goods , tangible to Russia “ in case , it restricts the access to the Russian market for Belarusian goods. He didn’t exclude introduction of the rent for the land under the oil pipeline in case of Russia’s putting pressure upon Minsk .According to him, when Russia was in a predicament , the Belarusian party ,was building the Yamal-Europa pipe-line branch without taxation, thus ,losing USD 1 billion ”.”We behaved as brothers without searching for profits,” he stressed and added about Russia’s allegedly paying USD 4.5-5 billion to Poland for gas transit and only USD 120 million to Belarus (according to the Vremya Novostey, payments for the Russian gas transit over the Polish territory amount to around USD 300 billion).In conclusion, Lukashenko proposed to Moscow : “Pay us USD 5 million
( for the gas transit ,-ed. ) and we shall not argue the gas price.”

Lukashenko stated that Russia is responsible for the oil switch -off to Europe.
” We are not responsible for the escalation of tension around the oil pipe. We are not to blame for that clash… Many people in Europe have understood after the collision that today it is Belarus, tomorrow it may be themselves.” “Europe and the USA behaved honestly in this situation and offered us a support. We shall never forget that.”, declared Lukashenko.And to prove the above-mentioned he promised to develop relations with western countries. ”We are ready to collaborate even with the devil , with the Satan ,for ensuring our energy security… If Europe is ready for cooperation with us, we shall make a step forward to any sort of such cooperation. “

Developing his idea on Russia’s energy policy-making the Belarusian leader sharply criticized the construction of the “North Stream” gas pipeline from Russia to Germany along the bottom of the Baltic Sea and suggested to Russia to build another Yamal-Europa pipe-line branch. ”The most silly Russia’s project is the construction of the gas pipeline along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Nobody knows what may happen to this pipeline resting on the armory of explosive weapons,” declared Lukashenko thus repeating the leaders of Poland and Baltic states. According to the Belarusian leader,” this project may be included into the “Guinness book of records ”. “ Is the Baltic gas pipe-line construction by Gazprom the normal policy- making ? Can we negotiate normally with such leadership? “
While commenting on Alexander Lukashenko’s statements a Kremlin source declared to the RIA Novosty :”These words serve another good confirmation of the importance of that pipeline construction.”

The Russian leader’s escapades seem illogical after the seemingly successful resolution of the clash by means of a complicated compromise. However, Alexander Lukashenko didn’t want to pretend that even “the poor peace” is dear to him .A high-ranked source of the “Vremya Novostey” in Moscow explains it by the extremely tough phone-talk between Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin . According to the source, Lukashenko started with the reproach that Moscow had ”deceived” him. Then the talk was continued on a high-pitched tone. It seems, that it resulted in Lukashenko’s intention to turn to “the West”.
It is remarkable that at the end of 2006 the European Union once again offered to Belarus the relationship warming-up for the democratic and market reforms in the country. Truly speaking, Leanid Zaika , head of the “Strategia” Belarusian
analytical center, doubted in his interview to the Vremya Novostey that Minsk would make a real turn to the West. ”The power can’t set free a couple of opposition prisoners and allow the non-state newspapers be sold at the Parliament. But I don’t think that those steps will be considered sufficient by the West. Moreover, as it was confirmed by practical experience, Russia possesses enough leavers for radical changing of the Belarusian foreign policy priorities . “
Alexander Lukashenko also depicted another party guilty for the Russian- Belarusian clash .”Only in the ”cold war” times certain countries and states can behave like that. Certain newspapers and magazines, it does not matter which, spitting at the leader of the state and mocking at the Belarusian people which have not done any harm to the Russian people do not make, to my mind, our relations more trustworthy.”

If we come to the essence of the Minsk-Moscow agreements on gas and oil , both the Belarusian independent experts and state functionaries have a common opinion on the fact that the conditions of the Russian -Belarusian agreements on cooperation in the oil sphere are beneficial to Minsk. The Belarusian state mass media treat the problem in the same way.

And Andrey Kobyakov, Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister, at the press-conference on Saturday commenting on the procedure of the Russian export duty collection, declared that the signed in Moscow agreement “is a not a concession , it is a civilized means of settling the argument- with figures and calculations. The calculations show that such distribution is the fairest.” The Deputy Prime Minister promised that despite of the changed conditions of cooperation with Russia in the sphere of energy the government will implement the forecasts for the current year and , in particular, will not let the inflation exceed 6-8%.

“In terms of the economy, it will not result in serious changes. There will be no substantial losses for the country’s budget, damage for the country’s business resulting from oil refinery,” Mr. Kobyakov declared when answering the questions of the Vremya Novostey.