You're reading: Lukashenko urges Minsk meeting participants to cast away political ambition in resolving Ukrainian crisis

Minsk – Participants of the meeting in Minsk should cast away ambition with regard to resolving the Ukrainian crisis, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said.

 “If we want to be considered responsible politicians, we should realize the whole weight of responsibility on our nations, to cast away political ambition, not to look for some dividends, and to think about the destinies of ordinary people,” Lukashenko said in Minsk on Aug. 26 upon opening the meeting between the Customs Union, the European Union and Ukraine.

The Belarusian president is convinced that “none of those present in the room wants to benefit from the current situation: doing so would be sacrilegious.” He recalled that people “have entrusted their fates to us.” Lukashenko then asked: are politicians really going to “leave the ruins and burnt-down sites (instead of active factories and plants) as is now happening (in Ukraine) and condemn people to tears and suffering?”

He stressed that, “the whole region (east Ukraine) is now on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.”

It is outrageous that the word “war” has come back into the common use of an ordinary European, he said. “Reason has been put on the back burner, and attempts are being made to resolve all problems at gunpoint,” Lukashenko said. He recalled: “We are all Europeans. What do we have to carve up here? We must do everything to prevent our European home from collapsing.”

The first priority is “to stop the bloodshed at any cost,” the Belarusian president said.

“War is a path to nowhere, a deadlock which is extremely difficult to get out of,” he said. “The unwinding spiral of mutual accusations, ultimatums, and sanctions could lead to new divisive lines being drawn not on paper but turning into real deep scars on Europe’s body,” Lukashenko warned. “And that means further escalation of tensions which could lead to irreversible consequences for the entire continent,” said the Belarusian head of state.