MINSK, February 4. /TASS/. The chill in relations between Minsk and Washington has come to an end, said Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday.

"I wouldn’t say that the Americans are such great friends of ours. However, the period of that chill when we looked at each other through some porthole, [over] a thick concrete wall, is over," the BelTA news agency quotes him as saying.

According to Lukashenko, no one needs to worry about that. "We are mending ties with the greatest empire, the leading country in the world," he pointed out.

On February 1, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Minsk, where he held talks with Lukashenko and Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei. Pompeo said that the United States was ready to provide Belarus with energy resources in full at competitive prices.

Makei highlighted Minsk’s interest in beefing up the presence of US businesses. He also noted that Belarus was ready to provide any formats for meetings and negotiations to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine, including those involving the United States.