Aliaksandr Lukashenka stated Belarus’ intention to deepen cooperation with Iran in all spheres, including military. According to the Belarusian service of Radio Liberty, Lukashenka said this during his talks with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Minsk on 20 August.
The Iranian president arrived in Minsk on a visit in the evening of 19 August. The meeting with Lukashenka kicked off talks between the delegations of the countries.
“You have been and remain our friends, we are striving to fulfil all our commitments we have made to Iran. I want you to realise that you have come to see your friends and you can and should feel like friends here,” Lukashenko said addressing the Iranian president.
He conveyed his congratulations to Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and recalled his previous meetings with him during his visits to that country.
“We are ready to discuss any issues. We have no closed topics, we are ready to co-operate on issues ranging from providing food to the people of your country to military-technical co-operation. There are no secrets here. We are not friends against anyone. We do everything for the benefit of our peoples – Iranian and Belarusian,” stressed Lukashenko.
For his part, the Iranian president touched upon the issue of sanctions and relations with the United States during his talks with Lukashenko. “We understand that the only thing that can neutralise all these illegal sanctions is the development of our relations and agreements to be implemented in practice,” said the Iranian president.
He also noted that Belarus and Iran have common positions on international issues, especially in the agreements reached within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union, BRICS and SCO, thanks to which both multilateral and bilateral relations can be developed.
According to him, common views should be implemented in the economic, cultural sphere, in the development of tourism and military-technical co-operation.
“Of course, the destructive unilateral approach being implemented by the US and its allies around the world is unacceptable for us. We want to remain independent – both our country and your country – and within the framework of independent decisions we can develop our friendship and cooperation,” Pezeshkian said.
Lukashenko, who has previously repeatedly said the sanctions have no negative impact on the economy, has now labelled them “economic terrorism”.
“Belarus considers the illegal restrictive measures imposed against Minsk and Tehran by the collective West as economic terrorism. Our republics are successfully resisting this aggressive and hypocritical sanctions war,” he stressed.
Lukashenko also said he supports Iran’s right to a nuclear programme.
The Iranian president’s visit to Belarus was planned earlier, but was disrupted after the aggravation of relations between Iran and Israel.
It is planned that the current talks will be held in two stages – first in a narrow circle and then in an extended one.