Lukashenko suggests discussing ways to overcome sanctions within CSTO, EAEU

MINSK. March 11 (Interfax) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko suggested elaborating joint ways to counter the sanctions pressure within the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday.

"From an economic point of view, one shouldn't say that we will or will not survive the sanctions. We have survived them as much as possible. We need to rebuild our economy. We can do without them, we have everything to live and work normally. I want to offer you, and we have always helped our allies. We have helped the Kazakhs, and we have helped everyone. We opened the market for some, I will not name them, as they are offended. Well, so we need to somehow get together in the CSTO, in the EAEU, and to rally together," Lukashenko said at the beginning of a meeting between the two presidents. The Rossiya-24 (VGTRK) television channel aired the opening remarks of the two presidents.

"Let's convene it. And believe me, add more of these markets, and in a month we will forget that we have sanctions," Lukashenko said.

"I think you will back me up so that we can gather in Moscow. Sit down at the negotiating table and reach an agreement: we are selling you this, and you are selling us that. And work out our common economic policy," the Belarusian president went on to say.

Lukashenko noted that he arrived in Moscow with confidence that "we will do better than we have always done after the collapse of the Soviet Union and even in the Soviet Union."

"The situation is not one for us to get anxious and worried about any events. We just need some time. You can see great things from a distance," Lukashenko added.