Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks during a meeting with President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, Minsk, June 25, 2024

President Lukashenko,

Thank you for your kind words about the foreign ministries of our countries. We do our best to achieve the strategic goals that you and President of Russia Vladimir Putin have set in foreign policy, and to organise our foreign political activities in a manner that provides diplomatic support for integration.

Yesterday, we signed the Joint Statement on the Main Foreign Policy Tasks of the Union Integration of Russia and Belarus. The statement directs us to always consider the interests of the Union State rather than the interests of Minsk or Moscow separately when strengthening our coordination.

All the agreements concerning the Shanghai Cooperation Organisations have been finalised. As the first act of the summit in Astana, Belarus will be officially accepted as a full SCO member state. Minsk will participate in all events on par with the other members.

We can report on other matters as well. Yesterday, we held a detailed discussion about the UN and the OSCE. You are fortunate in that Belarus was never a member of the Council of Europe, so you did not have to withdraw. Ideas about Eurasian security are under discussion as well. Both you and Vladimir Putin have voiced your proposals. The discussion was prompted by the events in the autumn of 2023, when Belarus, as the CSTO Chair, hosted the first international high-level conference, Eurasian Security: Reality and Prospects in the Transforming World. A decision was made later that Minsk would host a dialogue on Eurasian security every year. We strongly support these efforts. We have already received an invitation to the second conference, which will be held this autumn. We will be happy to attend. Mr Aleinik and I discussed how to promote the concept of Eurasian security and get more like-minded parties involved. I believe this concept has good prospects.