Lukashenko threatens to deploy Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus
Belarus will ask Russia to deploy nuclear weapons in its territory if such systems are deployed in Poland, said Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
In an interview with RIA Novosti, Lukashenko suggested that if Germany refuses to deploy American nuclear weapons, then they will be deployed in Poland.
"They will move them [nuclear weapons] to Poland. Yes. Then, I will offer Putin to bring nuclear weapons back to Belarus. We will talk about it. These will be weapons that will be most effective in such contact," Lukashenko said.
Lukashenko added that Belarus has plenty of facilities for the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons. "We are ready for this in the territory of Belarus. I, as a diligent host, did not destroy anything. All the sheds are still standing," Lukashenko added.
On November 19, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that American nuclear weapons stationed in Europe could end up in Eastern European countries if Germany refuses to deploy them. The Secretary General stressed that he expects to continue the partnership with Germany within the framework of the agreement on the joint use of nuclear weapons. According to this document, which was signed in 1991, Germany refuses to produce and use nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in exchange for the deployment of the nuclear weapons of other NATO countries in its territory.
Belarus renounced nuclear weapons after the collapse of the USSR and in 1993 joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear state. By November 1996, all the nuclear weapons, a total of 584 medium-range and shorter-range missiles, were removed from Belarus and destroyed at training grounds in the countries of the former USSR.
The Belarusian Foreign Ministry says on its website that the republic "is ready to develop and strengthen the mechanisms of the NPT, increase its effectiveness and contribute to the achievement of consensus results of the tenth Review Conference, which is scheduled to be held in New York in January-February 2022."
In 2010, Lukashenko said that he believed that the the withdrawal of nuclear weapons was a mistake.
"The withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Belarus on the terms that were used by our nationalists was a cruel mistake. I had to sign this agreement because there was nowhere to go. Both Russia and the Americans put pressure on me – take it out because they promised. It was impossible. This is the greatest property, this is an expensive product, which we eventually had to sell decently, " the Belarusian state agency BelTA quotes Lukashenko.