29 March 2007
Lukashenka says that Belarus' «talks» with West are not intended to damage relations with Russia
Alyaksandr Lukashenka said on Wednesday that Belarus' "talks with the West" were not intended to damage relations between the country and Russia.
He suggested that Moscow was worried about what he called talks between Belarus and the European Union and attempts by the United States to improve relations with Belarus.
He dismissed the concern. "Why shouldn't we talk to our western neighbor? We have a huge monster, Russia, in the east who we are building relations with, but the EU accounts for 50 percent of our trade. We have economic interests there."
He however added that Belarus would move to build relations with Russia on a "decent" basis as soon as common sense prevailed in Russia. //BelaPAN
http://brestonline.com/en/news/news1011.html