Photo:
TASS
MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/. Press Secretary of the Prime Minister of Russia Natalia Timakova believes that accounting is present in the political and economic relationship, even the closest countries.
“Of course, any political and economic relations, even with as close a partner as Belarus is always accounting. The government of Russia in its work must take into account the emerging trade and economic relations with other countries, including their debts,” – said Timakova TASS.
Press Secretary of the Russian Prime Minister recalled that “the volume of loans received from Russia the Belarusian partners, exceeds $6 billion.” “It would be nice and the Belarusian leadership to be aware of this”, – said Timakova.
Earlier the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that accounting should not be the basis of Russian – Belarusian relations. “I don’t want the details to go into, but (Prime Minister Dmitry) Medvedev needs to understand that if we pay in Europe (for gas – approx. TASS), for something he, too, will have to pay. And the price will be enormously higher than the price of natural gas, – said Lukashenko. – I thought, and I think so far, and probably the vast majority of the Russian people and Russians think and understand that our relationship with Russia is not accounting.” According to him, “accounts here, and the price of natural gas, which belongs to Medvedev, should not be the basis” of bilateral relations.
This statement Lukashenko had made, commenting on the discussion at the meeting of the intergovernmental Council of EurAsEC in Bishkek on Tuesday. Then Belarusian Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov said that problems in relations of Moscow and Minsk, in particular the dispute over gas and oil issues, distort the Eurasian integration. The Chairman of Russian government said that, “if some of the participating countries of the Eurasian economic Union acceded to, would buy the gas for European (higher) prices.” Medvedev urged his colleagues to remember this when deciding which block or hamper integration. “Here no one forcibly holds, we voluntarily created”, – he said.