"Let's choose détente right away." Lukashenko's speech at the Minsk Security Conference
Dear Conference Participants! Thank you for inviting me to speak at our conference.
First of all, I want to welcome you to the Belarusian capital at the third Eurasian Security International Conference. The conference was anticipated not only by us, the participants, but also, naturally, by our opponents, who are closely watching Minsk today. Not everyone was supposed to make it to Minsk today. This was precisely the goal pursued by some of our neighbors, who pulled off this insane scam of closing borders. And they came up with an absurd pretext. Balloons. Even for such a small country as Lithuania, this is petty. And now the "greatest" ones are demanding apologies from us. This morning I received similar information.
You know, if you are guilty, you should always apologize. And if we are convinced that we are guilty, they will convince us of this (they are trying to convince us now), we are ready to discuss it publicly, we will apologize. That's for sure. But if some balloons with cigarettes or something else are flying there, I believe that this issue should be resolved there. They didn't just fly off somewhere unknown. Someone received them or is receiving them there. Someone is interested in this. Such things must be found and nipped in the bud. Well, this is just a side note, as I am sure you have followed this issue.