MINSK, January 29. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has emphatically dismissed the speculations Russia might have a conflict with Belarus.
"Do get this filth out of your mind," Lukashenko told a news conference for Belarussian and foreign mass media.
"As for the Russian ‘Nashizm’ movement - calm down. First, Russia at present has other concerns," the president said, referring to statements by some politicians that "after Crimea, Putin will go to war with Belarus." "I absolutely cannot imagine how a Russian may come to Belarus to fight," Lukashenko said, adding that the republic "is a sovereign and independent state." "It just doesn’t make sense, how we, Russian people will fight against Russians? I cannot imagine that a Russian will come to Belarus to fight - a Russian native person to his native Belarusian land," he said.
The president said his words "give us Bryansk, Smolensk and Pskov" should not be taken seriously. These statements had been made in response to questions that were "pestering" him, he said.
"We don’t need the lands of others. We must keep our own land. This will be the best present to me," the president said. "Do we need a headache? Smolensk, Bryansk, Pskov - they are equal to half of Belarus in size - a mass of problems! One should be an absolute idiot to claim part of lands of such a giant as Russia," Lukashenko said.
The leader said integration of Belarus and Russia is deeper and stronger than that of other integration entities.
At the same time, no major improvement in relations of Belarus with Europe and America is expected to take place until the presidential election is held in the country, the president noted.
"At present, the integration with Russia is much deeper than within the framework of the Customs Union (CU), Common Economic Space (CES) and Eurasian Economic Union (EEU)," Lukashenko said.
According to him, the union of Belarus with Russia "is an economic, military-political union, and it has far less problems than the CU, CES and EEU. The union state is a range where we drill integration cooperation tasks," the Belarusian president said. The decision on the strengthening of bilateral integration ties between Russia and Belarus was made on April 2, 1996 when the two countries’ presidents signed a Treaty on the Formation of the Community of Russia and Belarus. One year later, it was transformed into the Union of Russia and Belarus.
On December 8, 1999 the sides signed a Treaty on the creation of the Union State of Russia and Belarus that took effect on January 26, 2000.
A common migration space has been established within the Union State: the two countries’ citizens can travel to each other with their internal national documents without passing the customs and border control.