Nyaklyaeu: “We would have to draw European vector from scratch”

• 28.10.2010, 16:58

On October 28 a presidential aspirant in Belarus, Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu, presented his “foreign policy doctrine” in Minsk.

As said by Nyaklyaeu, his team had analyzed all agreements with the European Union over the recent years, “Belorusskiye novosti” report.

“It has turned out that we do not even have an agreement on partnership and cooperation! All the agreements currently in force were concluded back in 1989, under the Soviet Union. In 1995 there was an attempt to create such an agreement, but it failed as all the agreements were not ratified,” the politician said.

“We should start our relations from the very first steps. We would have to draw this vector from scratch,” Nyaklyaeu said.

“We must return to the Council of Europe,” he is convinced.

The campaign manager of Nyaklyaeu, Andrei Dzmitryeu, has stated that it is “simply a populism” to speak about Belarus’ joining the European Union in the next 5 years.

As for the relations with Russia, in case Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu elected as a president, he is set to sign a program of responsible neighbourhood with this country.

“We have singled out the things which are really useful for Belarus out of all this idle talk and trash. There are not many concrete agreements there, but there are very important ones among them, and they could not be just ignored and thrown away,” Nyaklyaeu stated.

“For instance, speaking about an open border... How could one say that we would close the border with Russia? – and I have heard such statements,” the politician said.

As noted by Nyaklyaeu, in the long view, Russian military bases could be withdrawn from Belarus, as long as the country had announced itself a neutral state, and this strategy is not compatible with the presence of Russia’s military installations. However, as Nyaklyaeu said, agreements would not be revised before the termination of their duration.