East-West confrontation at its highest - Lukashenko
MINSK. Oct 8 (Interfax) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has called the East-West confrontation dangerous.
"We cannot help but be concerned by the fact that the level of mistrust and confrontation between the East and the West is at its highest," Lukashenko said at the Minsk Dialogue forum on Tuesday.
Experts on both sides "are drawing a horribly realistic picture. For example, Russia and NATO may switch from an accidental local conflict to a nuclear war within a few minutes," he said.
Dismantling of the arms control architecture has practically come to the final straight after two key parties to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear-Forces Treaty, the United States and Russia, quit, Lukashenko said. "The New START is the last line," he said.
Unless the sides agree to extend this treaty, "the world will have no nuclear arms regulations left" in just a couple of years, Lukashenko said.
"Humanity is rapidly moving toward the brink of abyss," he said.