International community calls for restraint in Belarus

The international community has called for peace and restraint in Belarus, as President Alexander Lukashenko urged western powers to focus on their own problems.

Lukashenko said Wednesday that western leaders should focus on their own problems rather than the political situation in Belarus, state news agency BelTA reported.

“They are having a great deal of problems at home. Do not point at Belarus in order to draw attention away from the issues in France, the United States, Germany and so on,”

Lukashenko said at a meeting of his national security council via video link.

China believes that Belarus can maintain political stability and social tranquility through its own efforts, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Wednesday at a press briefing.

China has always respected the development path chosen by the Belarusian people and their efforts to safeguard national independence, sovereignty, security and development, Zhao said.

China is aware that the domestic situation in Belarus has become complicated, Zhao said, adding that “as good friends and partners, we do not hope that the situation in Belarus will escalate into chaos and oppose external forces triggering division and disturbances in Belarusian society.”

Moscow is worried about attempts to use the internal difficulties that Belarus and its leadership are facing to impose limitations on its citizens that external actors would then pounce on, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with television channel Russia 1 on Wednesday.

“Nobody hides that it is all about geopolitics, about the struggle for the post-Soviet space,” Lavrov said.