MINSK, November 13. /TASS/. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that Belarus and Russia actually work as one state, while remaining sovereign countries.
"We are now working in fact (of course, there are disputes, as I said, contradictions, but aren’t there any within Russia? There are also disputes between us), but we are working as one state. Can you mention an area where we build our relations as different states?" Lukashenko said in an interview with Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the Russian National Defense magazine.
According to him, at the new stage the integration has been reconsidered. "Why scare people that someone will lose independence and sovereignty? That Russia will become part of Belarus, and Belarus into Russia, well, why talk about it? You just should do real work. This is the essence of our integration today. It has been rethought, "Lukashenko said.
The Belarusian leader noted that he did not want the development of integration to be perceived as if he wanted to "bring Belarus into Russia." "There is no politician in Belarus today who could do this. We could have done it in the mid-1990-s <...>. By now two generations were born after that. These are other people," Lukashenko said.
According to him, the Presidents of Russia and Belarus understand it. "Putin and I understand this. And you know, if after the breakup of the Soviet Union we understood in our heads that unity and integration had to be a union, now the time has changed," the Belarusian leader said.
"As sovereign states we are so smart - I have already said it about myself and about Putin, - having two sovereign states, we can have such close relations that it can be like in a single state," he said.