MINSK, May 25. /TASS/. Minsk is keen to proceed with further developing its strategic allied relationship with Moscow in the military realm, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said during a session of the Council of the Defense Ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Minsk on Thursday.
"The Republic of Belarus is interested in the further fostering of strategic allied ties with the Russian Federation in the military sphere," the Belarusian Defense Ministry’s press service quoted him as saying.
Minsk’s top military official underscored that this interaction should encompass the reinforcement of those obligations enshrined in Minsk and Moscow’s joint position papers as well as the creation of conditions and taking of measures necessary for neutralizing Western saber-rattling and rhetoric grounded in threats of force directed against both Belarus and Russia.
Khrenin stressed the importance of bilateral cooperation in the military and military-technical spheres amid incessant aggressive remarks coming from NATO members and the unprecedented pressure being placed on Minsk and Moscow by the collective West.
"They are trying to impose a unipolar world on us, wherein all countries are guided not by international law but by some sort of rules, ensuring that the interests of certain countries, whose leadership deems themselves to be ‘exceptional,’ are promoted. Such a worldview has resulted in an expanded geographical footprint for international terrorism, the unjustified ramping-up of troop strengths near the border of the [Russia-Belarus] Union State and an increase in military tensions across political, economic and information spaces both within the region and worldwide," he asserted.