| "I'm sure he couldn't possibly mean us..." |
The leader of Belarus has denounced the US President's statement made during his inauguration speech that America is destined to bring the freedom of speech to every nation. "The USA openly states that it is destined to carry freedom to every nation. But, perhaps, someone does not need their freedom, drenched in blood and smelling of oil," Alexander Lukashenko said at the Belarussian Security Council's meeting on Friday. "I do not want to be a great leader that opposes Americans, NATO, and so on. The Belarussian people have not set these goals for me. But as we live in a democratic and, as they say, free society, we should have the right to say openly what is going on in the world," he said. Belarus is ready to cooperate with NATO, but only if its national interests are observed and only on an equal and mutually beneficial basis, the President emphasized. In its contacts with NATO Belarus will abide by the agreements signed within the Union State [with Russia], the CIS and the Collective Security Treaty Organization [that comprises Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia], he said. "We will first of all compare our steps against our commitments in these organizations. This is a sacred thing for us and in this respect we should be decent and, most importantly, reliable for out partners," Mr. Lukashenko stressed. The meeting also took up the issue of Belarus's accession to the agreement between NATO and other countries participating in the Partnership for Peace program. "The most important is to envisage efficient measures to protect our national interests. We cannot risk the lives of our Belarussian guys sending them for military adventures in the interests of the West, like the hostilities in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. And we should not carelessly invite foreign armies for maneuvers on our territory," the President said. He did not rule out, however, that NATO units might be invited for the country's next military exercise.