Lukashenka meets with Ukraine’s acting president

Alyaksandr Lukashenka met with Ukraine’s acting President Oleksandr Turchynov in his residence in the Petrykaw district, Homyel region, on March 29.

The meeting that lasted more than three hours took place “on the initiative of the Belarusian side,” said Mr. Turchynov’s press office.

Speaking at the meeting, Mr. Turchynov, who is also speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, said that it was very important to Ukraine that foreign troops could never invade the country from Belarus.

It is extremely important that “a third party would never threaten Ukraine from the territory of Belarus,” said the acting president.

Mr. Lukashenka described the border between Belarus and Ukraine as “a border of friendship.” “We will always be together with you as with a most friendly state and will be building our relations proceeding from that. You should know that firmly,” he said.

Messrs. Lukashenka and Turchynov also discussed ways of stepping up bilateral cooperation in the spheres of transport and power engineering, called for establishing more joint plants and emphasized the need to boost two-way trade, according to the press office. They also shared an opinion that a roadmap plan for the development of economic ties should be drawn up.

“It’s very important to us that ties between our peoples should become stronger, that we offset economic problems that have existed in the past two years,” said Mr. Turchynov.

Mr. Lukashenka described the talks as “very useful.” “We exchanged opinions on all issues. And I’m very happy with the outcome of our meeting. We have found understanding on all problems and issues that are of concern to us. We can calmly go our separate ways to Minsk and Kyiv today and be satisfied with the agreements that we have reached here,” Mr. Lukashenka’s press office quoted him as saying.

Mr. Lukashenka noted that any misunderstanding between Minsk and Kyiv could only be the result of a lack of correct information. “I’m also thankful for the sincerity and warmth that you have managed to introduce to our meeting,” he told Mr. Turchynov.