BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

25/07/2007

Belarus-Malaysia Plans For Top-Level Visits

By R. Ravichandran

KUALA LUMPUR, July 25 (Bernama) -- Belarus and Malaysia are working on top-level visits between the leaders of the two countries to forge comprehensive and multi-faceted bilateral relations them.

Belarus Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov told Bernama today that if everything was finalised, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko would visit Malaysia on a date be announced later.

He said that during the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Havana, Cuba, last September, Lukashenko and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had agreed to exchange visits and "we are still discussing it".

The exchange of visits would further strengthen and expand ties between Minsk and Kuala Lumpur in the economic, trade, education and cultural fields, said Martynov, who is scheduled to meet his Malaysian counterpart, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, tomorrow.

Belarus is the only European country to have joined NAM which mainly comprises Africa and Asian countries.

Currently, Malaysia does not have an embassy in Belarus and Belarus too does not have an embassy here.

Asked about criticisms in the European countries on Balarus' human rights records, Martynov said that its constitution guaranteed the political, social and economic rights of all its citizens.

He said that for the past few years, Belarus had enjoyed strong economic growth rate of eight per cent to 10 per cent and a very low unemployment rate of about 1.5 per cent.

-- BERNAMA

Source:

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news_lite.php?id=275464