Russia is Behind Belarusian Arms Sales to Rogue States, Opposition Leader Says

Russia Today | Feb 28, 2002

[Sawdring]

Feb 28, 2002 -- (BBC Monitoring) Text of report by Russian news agency Ekho Moskvy.

[No dateline as received] Russia is using Belarus as a "channel" for selling arms to such countries as Iraq, Iran and Libya, the former chairman of the Belarusian parliament, the leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party, Stanistaw Shushkevich, has said in an interview for Ekho Moskvy radio. He added: "Russia is a major country and cannot break UN sanctions, but it is of course very convenient for it to have such an obliging leader by its side."

"I am practically sure that it is Russia which is using this channel because Belarus simply does not and cannot have these weapons in sufficient amounts," Shushkevich said. He believes that if Belarus "is involved in this intermediary function, all this is done by Russian arms manufacturers".

At the same time, Shushkevich said that he had no facts to support his theory. "For me, the only available evidence is that there are scores of Russian military attaches, military representatives and traders always present in Belarus. I don't think they've got any other interests here," Shushkevich said.

He added that "representatives of those countries which are directly or indirectly linked to terrorism were also always present" in Belarus and they were "very much respected by the regime" of [Belarusian President] Alyaksandr Lukashenko. Shushkevich said that high-ranking Belarusian officials often visit countries like Iran and Iraq.

Commenting on reports that the USA has threatened to introduce sanctions against Belarus for its probable arms sales to countries supporting terrorism, Shushkevich said that "America cannot go far in its actions against Belarus, but it is capable of closing the channels used for arms sales - it would be very easy to do."

Source: Ekho Moskvy news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0910 GMT 28 Feb 02

[ChicagoRepublican]

One of my prediction for the new year was that there was going to be groin tension between the New Western Eastern Europe and the Orthodox Eastern Europe. Belarus is going to cause some serious trouble, and the Polish-Belarussian border will get a little more tense.

[Fish out of Water]

fyi

[Voronin]

As far as I recall, Belarus is one of the main centres of excellence that produce a lot of high tech military equipment for the Russian Forces, thus the close relations between the two is not that suprising.

VRN

[Free the USA]

bttt

[mafree]

bump

[batter]

Thanks for the info and the 'heads-up'.