Belarus wants to promote relations with EU on basis of new framework document
MINSK. Jan 4 (Interfax) - Relations between Minsk and the European Union ought to develop in compliance with a new bilateral document, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei has said.
"We should seek to start building relations with the European Union in the future on the basis of a new framework document," he told the Belarus 1 television station on Sunday evening.
Today, these relations are regulated "by agreements that were concluded between the Soviet Union and the European Economic Community," Makei said.
A new form of cooperation between Minsk and the EU should be based on the unacceptability of restrictive measures, the Belarusian foreign minister said, expressing hope that the EU would lift its sanctions against Minsk completely and unconditionally.
"There should be the full cancellation of the relevant restrictive measures that would certainly help bring our cooperation with our European partners to a totally new level," he said.
At the end of October 2015, the EU Council suspended EU sanctions against 170 Belarusian citizens and three legal entities for four months.
"This decision was taken in response to the release of all Belarusian political prisoners on 22 August and in the context of improving EU-Belarus relations," the EU Council said in a statement then.