Belarusian foreign minister would like to have normal relations with Russia, EU
MINSK. April 28 (Interfax) - Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said it is profitable for his country to have normal relations both with the European Union and Russia.
"We have no intention of uniting against anyone. It's profitable for us to have normal relations with the European Union and Russia at the same time because it brings specific dividends to specific people. We are interested in having normal relations with the East and the West," Makei said in an interview with the Czech newspaper Lidove Noviny published on the website of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry on Saturday.
"We initially proclaimed that the main principle of our foreign policy is that it has many vectors. We did not want to focus on just one track, East, West, South, North, etc." he said. Makei said he regrets that "we have not always had equal relations with all tracks." "Due to our economic dependence on Russia, we had to be oriented mostly towards Russia." He said.
"We get virtually all our hydrocarbon resources, oil and gas, from Russia. Unfortunately, Europe can't replace these supplies. Russia is our main economic partner, our main strategic ally, we are building a union state, which, by the way, benefits the people," he said.
The minister said Belarusian-Russian trade turnover reached some 49% of its entire trade turnover in 2013, and the trade turnover with the EU reached 27%. He recalled that the figures were almost the same several years ago. "The situation worsened as a result of sanctions and some other actions. Now we have a small imbalance. Nevertheless, the European Union remains our second largest trade and economic partner after Russia," Makei said.
"When sanctions were introduced against Belarus, we, of course, thought about diversifying our economy, bearing in mind that there was no certainly about our trade and economic relations with the European Union then. For this reason, we began working actively with China and other countries of Southeast Asia," he said.
"Belarus is probably destined to balance between the east and the West. No matter what anyone would say, we will have to find a mutually acceptable level of relations with Russia and the West, if we want to think about the future of our country," Makei said.