Ahmadinejad hurried to congratulate Lukashenka on Independence Day

On 2 June – a month before the official Day of Independence of the Republic of Belarus, Iranian media published congratulation of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to his colleague Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

It’s worthy to note, it hasn’t been denied yet, the AFN notes.

The agency supposes it has some relations to an attempt to smoothen the consequences of an unsuccessful visit to Belarus of Iranian Mines and Industries Minister Akbar Mehrabian.

The visit of Iranian Mines and Industries Minister Akbar Mehrabian to Belarus (21-22 May) didn’t met the expectations of the Iranian leadership. Sending their minister to Minsk, the Iranian authorities didn’t apparently take into account the fact he was to visit the country similar to their own one – authoritarian, whose leadership cares only about their own problems and profits, AFB writes.

As a result, having come to Minsk to solve an issue on expansion on Iranian car Samand production, the minister heard hint of A. Lukashenka and PM S. Sidorski that his government didn’t hurry to allow the Belarusians to Jofair oil field.

“The Belarusian government prefers business when choosing partners for investments projects. We count on the same position of the Iranian party,” Sidorskli said on 21 May at the meeting with Akbar Mehrabian. He also noted that he meant Jofair oil field exploration first of all.

The minister left Belarus in confusion, and “hospitable” welcome of Minsk provoked some fluster in Iran. Because cooperation with the last Europe’s dictatorship in not principal for Iran in economic view. However, a political component is important.

It seems Teheran has urgently began to seek a cause for making conciliatory gestures, realising that cooldown in relations will soon affect the political image of potentially nuclear state.

However, Iranian officials in great confusion were too hasty to congratulate the Belarusians on the officially marked 2indeendence day” a month earlier.

It should be noticed that 3 July actually is not the Day of Independence of Belarus, but the day when Minsk was liberated from Nazi occupants, which was appointed as “the day of independence” by Lukashenka’s degree. In actual fact, the Day of Independence of Belarus is 27 July, when in the Declaration on Sovereignty of the Republic of Belarus was adopted in 1991.

In any case, Ahmadinejad was too hasty.