Lukashenka: “Americans have been knocked teeth in. And it’s valuable!”
- 9.09.2008, 13:29
At a press-conference for Russian provincial mass media Lukashenka has taken the liberty to make a number of aggressive statements addressed to the West.
Thus, Alyaksandr Lukashenka explicitly exulted over Russia’s invasion to Georgia. “It is not a conflict of Russia and Georgia,” he said. “It’s the incident when Americans have been knocked teeth in for the first time in many years. And it is really valuable!”
To the question how Russia and Belarus would resist the NATO’s enlargement to the East, Lukashenka answered:
“In fact, together with the Russians we have become surrounded. When we are challenged, whether we like it or not, we should respond. We are to respond now, immediately, so that the situation like in the Caucasus won’t develop. The recent events, if it weren't for bad luck have no luck at all, have forces the Russians to what I had always been harping on: that we should build our relations without shame and without fearing anybody. They won’t understand us anyway, no matter how long we would kiss the West in different body parts. We have always been told: we are ready to sell gas for you at an internal Russian price, but what would the West say? Well, that’s what they have said. And we have certainly supported Russia”.
“We shall react; we shall proportionally defend interests of our states and our nations. And what it important, in advance. No more of bungling. We’ve seen that already during the Great Patriotic War, when we had been lulling ourselves saying that everything should be aright, and then suddenly thousands tons of bombs started to rain at our heads. We should be ready for whatever comes,” Lukashenka noted.
The Belarusian leader is not going to build relations with the West at the expense of cooperation with Russia.
“The West knows our position perfectly well, they understand perfectly well that we cannot be friends with the US at the expense of Russia. I said long ago that I would not trade friendship with Russia," Lukashenka said.
Lukashenka has also stated that he would like to see the Collective Security Treaty Organisation “a real organisation, like the NATO”.
“We would like the Collective Security Treaty Organisation to be a real organisation, like the NATO, where everybody wages war when a country had become a target of aggression. And this paragraph hasn’t been even ratified by us,” Lukashenka stated. “A challenge has been made for us, and whether we want that or not, we should respond, in order for the situation like in the Caucasus not to emerge. It is the worst variant, when this is so much the case, that hot clashes start”.
He said about the NATO and deployment of anti-missile shield near the borders of Belarus:
“It’s good it [ABM elements] have been deployed; for you, Russian citizens, to see what have been deployed over the tow years near our borders. The border is crammed with equipment for control and surveillance. Today the NATO aircrafts insolently control the territory nearby, sometimes flying over the territory of the “union state”. We are forced to respond to these challenges, we should think it over together without haste”.
To the question whether Belarus would recognize independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, he answered:
“For us the issue of recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is not just support of Russia. We have long-standing relations with Abkhazia, for instance. We shall consider this issue. We shall consider it in the same way as the Russian federation considered it, in the “parliament”. We have elections in a few days, the new parliament will come, and I think that our deputies would return to this issue. We cannot and have no right to keep silent. It would be dishonest towards Russia and Abkhazia. The same thing is with South Ossetia”.