Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko will “solve the problem” of the protest movement which has shaken his country since the disputed elections on 9 August, he says on Friday.
The opposition rejected the results of the recent presidential election, which according to Belarus’ election commission consisted of an 80.08% victory for Lukashenko.
Lukashenko assured workers in the region of Dzerjinsk (south of the capital Minsk) that they "don't have to worry.”
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"It is my problem that I have to solve and we will solve it. And believe me, in the next few days it will be solved," he said according to the public press office Belta.
Then he made it look like the protesters are being paid. "You guys are workers, you know that's how money is made. Sometimes it's earned on the street, but it doesn't last long."
The president, who has been in power for 26 years, accused the U.S. of organising the demonstrations to isolate Russia with a "cordon sanitaire of the three Baltic countries, us and Ukraine.”
"The United States is planning and directing all this and the Europeans are playing the game. A special centre has been set up in Warsaw," Lukashenko assured. "I will dialogue only with the workers' teams," he spoke to the workers he met.
Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who fled to Lithuania after the elections, said on Friday that she wants to return to Belarus. "I love my country very much and I really want to return. I will return as soon as I can feel safe there," she said at a press conference in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
The Brussels Times
