Lukashenka may get atom bomb in frames of “union state”

Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov had negotiations in Minsk on Friday. The objective of the visit of the Russian party to the Republic of Belarus was participation in a joint session of the Council of Ministers of the “union state.” As the Russian RBK Daily runs, after the negotiations it has become clear that rhetoric of the official Minsk has changed in relation to Moscow: Lukashenka made a promising statement that there were “no obstacles” in bilateral relations of the states.

Against a background of Washington’s threats to Belarus, Moscow and Minsk have received a chance to forget former tensions and show a united front on the world arena, the edition notes.

“I think we are going to progress in many questions today,” Viktor Zubkov said ahead of his meeting with the Belarusian ruler. Lukashenka himself has great hopes for the visit of the Russian government head to Minsk. The tension in relations between Belarus and the West, especially with the U.S. has increased recently. According to Lukashenka, in this situation his country cannot choose but develop relations with Moscow. “I think our relations with Russia will be far closer under such pressure of the West to Belarus,” he said before the meeting with the Russian PM.

The reason for such tough statements by Alyaksandr Lukashenka is expanding of U.S. economic sanctions against the Republic of Belarus at the end of the last year and suspending of visa issuing by the U.S. this March. If the visa issue lies in the sphere of diplomatic conflicts between the two states and may be settled in the nearest time without any critical problems, the imposing of American sanctions against the Belarusian regime is a far more serious matter. “The United States has broken its obligations on memorandum (Budapest Memorandum 1994 – RBL daily) and on security guarantees in the connection of joining The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, imposed and then expanded sanctions against Belneftekhim and its enterprises. By its actions the U.S. demonstrates its cynical treatment to the international law,” Lukashenka said last week.

U.S. economic sanctions against Belarusian concern Belneftekhim, and against the whole country, are really a strong economic and diplomatic blow of the West to Belarus and make impossible any fruitful cooperation between the sides in the near term. From the other side, they open up unique opportunities to Minsk.

“The Budapest Memorandum signed in 1994 by USA, Russia and UK with Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, guarantees the security of these former Soviet republics,” Belarusian politologist Yury Shautsou reminded to RBK daily. “One of the paragraphs of the memorandum says the parties, signed the memorandum, including the U.S., can’t impose any sanctions against Belarus. The case is that the U.S. provoked Belarus to break observing its non-nuclear status as a reaction to violation of the security assurances by Washington.”

As the expert noted, it doesn’t mean Belarus will become a nuclear state. But Minsk will receive a legal right to dispose Russian nuclear weapon on its territory. The republic has had no such right until recently. Now, if U.S. economic sanctions become stricter, Belarus may use its nuclear right and even demand Russia to expand these guarantees to all Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) participants, including Kazakhstan.

In other words, Moscow has received a present in fact –Russia may dispose nuclear weapon on the territory of its ally in full accordance with the international law at any moment.