Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 7 December (BelTA) – The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs needs to revisit its strategy of work, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said as he announced new personnel appointments in the Belarusian foreign diplomatic offices on 7 December, BelTA has learned.

The head of state cited the RSA and Argentina as examples where new ambassadors have been appointed. It is still early to talk about high efficiency of Belarus’ cooperation with these countries. Moreover, as for the Ambassador to the RSA, he holds concurrent accreditation to Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Namibia. “He simply cannot deal with such volumes of work effectively. We need to decide on the countries we are going to work with in Africa. We are not China or the United States. We do not have their resources to cooperate with the entire Africa. We need to look into the future and perhaps shut down some of the embassies where we have no interest or cooperation ties,” Alexander Lukashenko said.

The president assumed that maybe in some countries there is no need to have an office with a dozen of diplomats. Perhaps, at first, one diplomat and an aide will be enough. “Thus, we will lay down the basis for cooperation. If we see that our presence there builds up and our trade increases, we will continue expanding our representation. It is high time we revisited our strategy. We should keep in mind the things we have today and aim for the promising areas of the country,” he stressed.

Alexander Lukashenko believes the same approach is needed in the work of Belarusian diplomatic missions in other regions of the world, including Latin America. Apart from Argentina, he also mentioned Brazil with which the level of cooperation stills leaves much to be desired. “It is a big country. We need to have a try before we decide to close down the embassy there,” the president said.

“This is our down-to-earth approach for the near future, which means the reformatting of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The minister has already been given all necessary instructions,” the Belarusian leader said.