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Belarus leader notes importance of concluding basic agreement with EU

Alexander Lukashenko has recognized that for further development Belarus needs "a normal relationship with the European Union and the United States"

Belarussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko Mikhail Metzel/TASS

Belarussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko

© Mikhail Metzel/TASS

MINSK, June 22. /TASS/. Belarus is prepared for the full normalization of relations with the European Union and should seek the conclusion of a basic agreement with it, Belarussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko told the All-Belarus People’s Assembly on Wednesday.

"Cooperation with the European Union meets our national interests. The key long-term goal is full normalization of relations and the conclusion of a basic agreement between Belarus and the EU," he said.

Lukashenko recognized that for further development Belarus needed "a normal relationship with the European Union and the United States."

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He pointed to what he described as a warming of relations over the past few years.

"An end to the policy of sanctions towards Belarus opens up new opportunities for advancing cooperation. It would be wrong not to use them," Lukashenko said.

He called for making up leeway and first achieving "the level of relations with the European Union and the United States that our partners in the Eurasian Economic Union and the CIS, such as Russia, Armenia and Kazakhstan already have."

Cooperation with the West "is of interest to us in the first place from the point of view of investment, transfer of technologies, creation of advanced joint ventures, Belarussian companies’ participation in international production chains and, of course, marketing of Belarussian products.

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