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Lukashenko talks about principles of friendship in politics
MINSK, 20 April (BelTA) - Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko spoke about the principles of friendship in politics in an interview with RT, BelTA has learned.
The RT journalist called the Belarusian leader a person who goes against the system. He expressed the opinion that the West would not want Belarus to have good relations with Russia or North Korea. Moreover, Western countries cannot understand that it is possible to build friendly relations without harming anyone.
“Going against is just my nature, you hit on that, and perhaps it’s not always a good thing. But I have to say: you ought to be friends with those, and you can only be friends with those, who want to be friends with you,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. “What kind of friendship could I possibly have with Starmer? Or Biden? What kind of friendship could I have had with him if he imposed sanctions against me, and the Europeans were tightening a noose around my neck to hang me?”
The Belarusian leader noted that he has developed more than friendly relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We’re friends with Putin, more than just friends, really. We talk like brothers. He wants to see me and be friends with me. I’m happy to be friends with Putin,” he stressed.
Aleksandr Lukashenko also spoke about his friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “We’ve established a great tradition, what the Chinese call family gatherings, held every year. We’ll be meeting soon in a family setting. I’ll come with my youngest son, who graduated from Peking University, to his family home; we get along, we connect.”
Furthermore, the Belarusian president added that he is not opposed to having good relations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who, in his words, has been demonized in the West. “He’s a wonderful, smart, educated man. He’s fighting for his interests, for his country’s interests. He doesn’t bother anyone. You’re the ones trying to destroy him. He’s a tough man, doing his best to defend himself, however he knows how. He's open to good, friendly relations with me. I’m all for it,” the head of state said.
At the same time, Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasized that he is friends with these politicians not at all because they are “enemies of America”. Moreover, Belarus is open to friendly relations with the United States. “If Donald Trump is ready to build friendly relations with me or Belarus-USA friendly relations, we’re open to it. We want that,” he said.
“Ideally (this is impossible, but ideally) if everyone are friends with each other. Then there’d be no wars, just mutual help. Cuba and the USA could coexist peacefully side by side, along with Venezuela, Panama, Colombia, and Nicaragua. They’d always look at the USA with love, maybe not love, but respect. If the foundation is this drive toward friendship, like you said,” the Belarusian leader added.
The president reiterated that you can only be friends with someone who wants to be friends with you. “If Europeans don’t want to be friends with me, and that’s the truth, it’s not that I don’t want to be friends with them, it’s that they don’t want to be friends with me. So how are we supposed to build friendly relations with them?” Aleksandr Lukashenko wondered.
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