The Belarusian nuclear power plant that is being constructed in Astravets does not pose a threat to neighbouring countries, Alyaksandr Lukashenka said when nominating a new envoy to Lithuania on Tuesday.
Valery Baranouski, the current chief of the Presidential Administration’s foreign policy department, will replace Alyaksandr Karol, who has headed the Belarusian Embassy to Lithuania since December 2013.
Belarus does attach great importance to having good neighbourly relations with Lithuania and link them to the issue of the nuclear power plant, Alyaksandr Lukashenka stressed. According to him, the both countries may earn profit on the facility.
“We could jointly export nuclear energy, if Lithuania wanted,” he said.
Saying that the construction would be completed soon, the Belarusian leader promised that he would take safety and security arrangements under control.
“The NPP is not a threat to Lithuania. We are a Chernobyl republic,” Lukashenka said. In his opinion, the Belarusian side realizes that nuclear power must be safe.
Lithuania has repeatedly criticized the construction of the nuclear power plant and encouraged the rest of the countries of the United Europe to not buy electricity from the would-be NPP. Our neighbour is not only concerned about the proximity of the station to Vilnius, but also with a number of emergencies during the NPP construction. Among the emergencies are a reactor vessel incident, when it fell during the transportation, the collapse of the concrete structure at the site between the reactors. Our channel was the first to report on the incident. Before the official request of the Lithuanian side, representatives of the Belarusian NPP denied this information.
