MOSCOW, June 17. /TASS/. Moscow and Washington don’t see eye to eye on Belarus, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said after the Russian and US leaders’ summit in Geneva.
"Certainly, there are differences on Belarus," the Russian presidential spokesman told the Ekho Moskvy radio station on Thursday. Meanwhile, Belarus is not at all among the priorities that were on the Geneva summit’s agenda.
According to Peskov, the US voiced its stance on the Belarusian issue "in the well-known way." "We are aware of the Americans’ stance, this is the issue of [the Ryanair] flight, they believe this is an unacceptable violation. But we have our own opinion, we have information obtained from the origin - from Belarusian President [Alexander Lukashenko] and President Putin has no reasons not to trust his Belarusian counterpart," he explained.
At the Geneva summit, the sides stated that the Belarusian issue could hardly bring closer their positions as "this is impossible."
Speaking on other issues, on which Russia and the US are split, the Kremlin spokesman named NATO. "We did not go into detail of NATO’s affairs, but there is such an understanding that here we also hold different stances on the goals of the alliance, and the role it has," Peskov stressed.
On May 23, a Vilnius-bound Ryanair plane that took off from Athens made an emergency landing at Minsk International Airport after a reported bomb threat. A MiG-29 fighter jet alert crew was scrambled to escort the plane. After the landing, the plane was inspected and no bomb was found on board. The Belarusian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case into a false bomb alert. Among the passengers on that flight was Roman Protasevich, one of the co-founders of the Nexta Telegram channel recognized as extremist in Belarus. Protasevich and Russian national Sofia Sapega were detained by law enforcement agents once the plane had landed in the Belarusian capital.