A. Lukashenko confirms Belarus's commitment to developing cooperation with Russia

July 19, Minsk /Tatyana Polezhay - BELTA/. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko confirms Belarus' commitment to developing cooperation with Russia and its regions. The head of state stated this today at a meeting with the Governor of the Amur Region of the Russian Federation Oleg Kozhemyako, BELTA correspondent reports.

"Many say that Lukashenko is very emotional when he talks about relations. We are Russian people, our emotions always overflow, and we have never built our relations without emotions, I mean, between Slavic states. In general, this is a statement by unscrupulous media," the President said.

Countering those who believe that "Belarus will collapse sooner or later, it will be divided, either NATO will absorb it, or the European Union," Alexander Lukashenko emphasized that nothing of the sort will happen, the country is living today, and it will live.

"You should know that you will never be strangers to us, no matter what they say or write," the President said, addressing the Governor of the Amur Region.

The head of the Belarusian state noted that the Amur Region has the most dynamic development in the relations between Belarus and the Russian regions. In his opinion, this indicates that great distances are not an obstacle to establishing relations.

"The strategy that we once defined for the development of relations between Belarus and the regions of the Russian Federation is yielding good results," said Alexander Lukashenko. "We are moving forward with this example in cooperation, for example, with Ukraine. It is a huge country, not everything can be resolved in Kyiv, we cooperate very well with the governors of Ukraine, and this also brings a very big plus."

The President specifically noted that much has been done recently to develop integration between Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia, and to provide greater economic freedom. The head of the Belarusian state believes that this is already yielding good results. "I am confident that with the creation of the Single Economic Space on January 1, we are effectively recreating a single country in the economy. This is also very important. Of course, there are still many rough edges, but since Russia has already risked taking this path, I think it's only a matter of time before these rough edges are smoothed out," said Alexander Lukashenko. "Therefore, we have good prospects, and I want to confirm our commitment to developing our relations with the Russian Federation and its regions," he added.-0-