MOSCOW, April 23. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko did not discuss merging the two countries into a single state at their talks in Moscow on April 22, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

"No, a merger of the states into a single one [was] not [discussed]," he affirmed when responding to a question on the issue. "As for integration issues, integration is a permanent process, it is a living mechanism. Integration issues are on the agenda all the time."

Peskov noted that he did not know what statement Lukashenko was going to make in the near future. "I am unaware of that. As you know, there have been no statements so far, so we here do not know what it is all about, just like everyone else," he explained.

On April 17, the Belarusian leader said that he was going to make "one of the most crucial decisions" of his presidency. He did not reveal any details, explaining only that, most likely, it would be a presidential decree. According to a version that appeared in the expert community, the issue at hand could be a merger of Belarus and Russia.