MFA Press Secretary Andrei Savinykh replies to the reporters' questions during the press briefing by the held on February 2, 2012

02 February 2012

BelTA: The messages concerning escalation of the military presence of the US in the Gulf region appear more often recently. Some of them consider the possibility of a strike on Iran. What is the position of the Foreign Ministry on this issue?

Andrei Savinykh: A massive escalation of the military presence of the United States and a number of European countries in the Strait of Hormuz frustrates international political and diplomatic efforts to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. It aggravates tensions, uncertainty and unpredictability. It increases the probability of a non-peaceful scenario.

Belarus advocates peaceful settlement of disputes in compliance with international law. We expect the parties to stick to their declarations of the priority of peaceful settlement of the situation.

Belarus Today: The totals of trade and economic cooperation of Belarus and Russia in 2011 were published. How can you comment them?

Andrei Savinykh: Russian Federation has still been the main trade partner of Belarus, bilateral trade makes 45% of the total value of trade of the Republic of Belarus.

Trade and economic cooperation of the Republic of Belarus and Russian Federation has come up to the highest level in the history of the Belarusian-Russian relations.

The volume of the bilateral trade exceeded the record level of trade in 2008 by $4.5 billion and made $38.6 billion.

Export deliveries of tractors (by $463 million), trucks (by $405 million), meat and dairy products (by $297 million) increased significantly.

Within the framework of the Common Economic Space favorable conditions of hydrocarbons allowed to increase import of oil (by $1,8 billion), to boot capacity of refineries and thereby to increase the volume of exports of petroleum products to Russian and European market.

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