Belarus is ready to cooperate with any country on the basis of an equal partnership, President Alexander Lukashenko said on Saturday in an Independence Day message.
“We openly and frankly declare our willingness to cooperate with any of our partners without exception - with Russia, CIS states, the European Union, the U.S., China, and our friends in Asia and South America, but only on an equal level and without any damage to our national interests,” Lukashenko said.
He also said that Belarus’s “independent, multi-vectored foreign policies” had become “an example for young democratic states throughout the world.”
Lukashenko also noted that Belarus was the only former Soviet republic that did not celebrate its Independence Day on the date of its departure from the Soviet Union.
Belarusian Independence Day was earlier marked on July 27, the date when Belarus declared its independence from the Soviet Union, but was moved to July 3 in 1996 according to the results of a national referendum.
The current Independence Day celebrates the 1944 liberation of the Belarusian capital of Minsk from German troops during World War Two.
