Official Minsk against Nuclear Weapons :: Charter'97 :: News

Efforts of the world public on non-proliferation should be accompanied by concrete activities on nuclear disarmament as well as by creation and development of confidence measures between nuclear and non-nuclear states. That was declared by head of the Belarusian delegation, deputy foreign minister Viktar Haisyonak at the plenary session of the International Agency for Atomic Power, foreign ministry press office reported to BelTA. Thus the official Minsk is most likely to respond to the scandalous declaration of the Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Surikov on the might-be deployment of nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus.

Today Viktar Haisyonak informed on the position of Belarus in terms of guaranties of the International Agency for Atomic Power mentioning that our country was persistent and true advocate of reinforcement and universality of the international procedure of the nuclear non-proliferation and that it consistently discharges its obligations under the treaty on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and agreement on employment of guarantees. Furthermore Belarus calls other states for following the treaties target, i.e. nuclear disarmament.

In his speech deputy foreign minister of Belarus specified the technical cooperation issues within the International Agency for Atomic Power. He stressed that cooperation with the agency enables our country to get considerable assistance in several fields associated with implementation of nuclear knowledge and technologies and highly appreciated professionalism and competence of the agency secretariat in treating implementation of projects of technical cooperation in Belarus.

Cooperation with the International Agency for Atomic Power on removal of the Chernobyl disaster consequences was particularly specified. It is mentioned that the projects in this sphere were successfully implemented by the agency.

Deputy foreign minister also pointed out the efforts of the republic of Belarus aimed at cooperation with the International Agency for Atomic Power in the sphere of nuclear and radioactive security and safety as well as in the sphere of development of nuclear sciences, technologies and applications.

It is to be mentioned that in late August in his exclusive interview with the Interfax ambassador of Russia to Belarus Aleksandr Surikov answering the question if Russia is to deploy new military facilities in Belarus in return to American deployment of the anti-missile systems in Europe declared:

“It depends on the level of our political integration as well as on the viewpoints of diplomats, experts and military men”.

Thus the current declaration of the foreign ministry representative speaks of the intention of Belarus to retain its status of the non-nuclear state.

Viewpoints of the authorities and opposition on the issue coincide. The young leaders in Belarus are known to tear images of the Russian president Putin at the conference thus protesting against aggressive policy of Russia.