MINSK, July 9. /TASS/. The talks that the Belarusian and Russian presidents will hold on Russia’s Valaam Island won’t be of secret nature, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said at a Tuesday meeting with State Secretary of the Union State of Russia and Belarus Grigory Rapota.
"All of our newspapers, particularly the opposition ones, [ask]: ‘What decisions will they [the two presidents] make on Valaam?’ We are not going to make any secret decisions on Valaam. It was the Russian president’s initiative. It is a sacred Orthodox site and I just have to visit it. I am grateful to him that he will show it to me and tell me how the renovation work is going. There are no secrets," Lukashenko pointed out.
He also said that there are "too many issues that need to be resolved." "We have driven ourselves into a corner and are doing nothing to find a way out," the Belarusian president emphasized.
The Belarusian leader also told the meeting with State Secretary of the Union State of Russia and Belarus Grigory Rapota that Minsk and Moscow are not discussing the possibility of uniting the two countries into one state. However, in Lukashenko’s terms, the parties need to step by step boost integration.
"We don’t need to do it [unite Belarus and Russia into one state] right now. We even don’t need to talk about it. There is no need for it," Lukashenko said.
According to him, the parties need to move "step by step to implement the Union Treaty." "Clearly, there are big, important issues that we have decided to include in an action plan on building the Union State," the Belarusian president added. He also noted that there are "some current issues that need to be resolved, otherwise it is no use talking about integration."
Lukashenko pointed out that Russian agricultural watchdog had banned the export of goods produced by about 80 Belarusian companies. "If this is the way we build relations, then there is no use discussing the possibility of introducing a common currency and uniting the two countries. These things just shouldn’t exist in bilateral relations," he emphasized. Lukashenko added that the same concerned industrial cooperation and Belarus’ access to Russia’s government procurement system. He also mentioned Russia’s tax maneuver, saying that "we agreed that there should be no customs duties within the EAEU [the Eurasian Economic Union - TASS], let alone the Union State."
He noted that "almost all deadlines for the talks on future deliveries of natural gas and oil [to Belarus] have expired." "There are a lot of issues that are not being tackled. We agreed that apart from strategic issues, we will also resolve tactical ones that are out in the open, calling for urgent action," Lukashenko said. "The way we see the situation, without sorting out these issues, there is nothing to talk about," the Belarusian leader concluded.