Фото: пресс-служба правительства
Alyaksandr Turchyn has urged Belarusian diplomats to persistently explain the futility of sanctions to their European counterparts. The Belarusian prime minister made the statement at a Foreign Ministry board meeting, noting that Belarus cannot fully withdraw from the European market despite sanctions.
“Western business is far from enthusiastic about the decisions of European institutions and remains interested in cooperation with us. Therefore, we must continue to actively develop contacts, not miss any ‘windows of opportunity’ and do everything possible not only to preserve but also to strengthen our positions on the European market.
And therefore, continue — as persistently as you already do — to convey to European partners our principled position on the dead-end nature of the sanctions approach and to make the most of emerging alternative political ideas within the European Union,” the prime minister said.
Earlier at the meeting, Foreign Minister Maksim Ryzhankou said Belarus was not closing the door to Western countries.
Speaking at the session, Turchyn noted that 2025 had been a difficult year, but overall the Foreign Ministry and the government had performed quite successfully. According to him, exports remain the main priority despite the extremely volatile geopolitical situation.
He emphasized that Russia remains a strategic partner.
“Despite the high level of political contacts, the potential for cooperation with our other traditional partners within the CIS space has not been fully realized. My official visits to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan show that there are plenty of projects of interest to us there. The market of Kyrgyzstan also has enormous potential that has not yet been fully utilized,” he said.
Turchyn added that work on integration platforms must be built “strictly through the prism of Belarus’s national interests.”
The prime minister also recalled that the country’s socio-economic development program until 2030 предусматривает increasing the share of exports to countries of the “far arc” to one-third of the total volume.