BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

17/02/2009

Belarus Leader Says Ready To Work With EU

MINSK, Belarus (AFP)--Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday he was ready to work with the European Union but only on his terms, criticizing what he said were opposition attempts to interfere.

"I don't want to make the West happy. I do what is best for the Belarussian people," he told a Belarussian public radio station.

"Is it advantageous to have close relations with the European Union, as we do with Russia? Extremely advantageous," he said.

But he dismissed a bid by the country's opposition to appeal directly to the E.U.

"They wrote a whole petition to the Czech presidency of the E.U., I have the document on my desk," he said.

"And the Czech presidency is beginning to draw up the order of business for E.U.-Belarus relations based on the demands of a so-called opposition, which is scarcely visible, even under a magnifying glass."

That kind of approach would lead nowhere, he warned.

"The opposition is not going to impose anything on us via the European Union and the United States," he said.

In October 2008, the E.U. decided to lift a travel ban on Lukashenko and several associates and review the decision in six months.

The move was designed to encourage democracy in the wake of legislative elections the previous month in which opposition parties failed to win a single seat in the country's lower parliamentary chamber.

The polls were widely condemned by the U.S. government and Western observers.

Lukashenko, in power since 1994, has been criticized in the West as "Europe's last dictator."

Source:

http://www.easybourse.com/bourse-actualite/marches/belarus-leader-says-ready-to-work-with-eu-618236

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