Belarus says ready to conduct dialogue with EU on ‘equal, mutually respectful’ basis

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Belarus said it is ready to conduct dialogue with the EU, but only on an “equal and mutually respectful” basis, amid calls by European officials to expand sanctions against Minsk due to its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“The deputies of the European Parliament, mired in corruption scandals, must deal with the problems of their region, which are more than enough. You can start with meetings with your population and voters, if the separation from reality is already so great that it does not allow you to see the beams in your own eyes. If competencies are not enough, then our parliamentarians, I am sure, will always be ready to share experience in a constructive manner,” Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatoly Glaz said during a press briefing on Wednesday.

He recommended that European deputies think about the ways to “contribute to mutually beneficial cooperation between economic entities of our countries, to eradicate total restrictions on the basic right to freedom of movement of citizens of the EU countries and Belarus, as well as about other really pressing issues.”

Glaz also said it is obvious that EU sanctions are “an instrument of pressure that violates the basic rights of the population of sovereign countries against which these measures are directed.”

He continued: “The policy of the European structures, which are avoiding a mutually respectful dialogue and are not trying to offer anything other than the next coercive measures against an independent country, is a dead end.”

The spokesman accused the European Parliament of not taking “an independent position” in this context.

Belarus, a close ally of Russia, has aided Moscow’s ongoing war on Kyiv -- which has decimated large swathes of Ukraine and led to mass deaths and displacements -- but is not a direct party to the war, which began more than a year ago.