Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko would like to consider himself an optimist about the global situation. He said this in an interview with Al Arabiya, BelTA reports.
The head of state was asked whether he is more optimistic or pessimistic about the future trajectory of the current volatile world order, with its many conflicts.
“Fifty‑fifty. The situation may be what it is for now, but I would rather be an optimist,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. “You, I, and all of us simply want to live a normal life, in a peaceful and beautiful country like Belarus. I believe the same goes for Australia [the interviewer, Melinda Nucifora, was born in Australia], the part where people actually live. And New Zealand, too. I’ve never been there, but it seems to me that New Zealand is very similar to Belarus.”
“So we want to live in a peaceful world and in a beautiful country where one can work and have time to enjoy themselves,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
When asked whether there is hope for peace, both in the region where Belarus is located and in the Middle East where Al Arabiya primarily operates, Aleksandr Lukashenko said: “We have a very precise and true saying: hope dies last. So we do not lose that hope. And you observed very accurately that you and I live today in the world’s most dangerous regions, places where wars are being fought. So sometimes, hope is all we have. The notion that there is always hope for peace is a timeless truth.”
“We never stop hoping for peace, because history itself has pushed us in that direction. Unlike your homeland, we have always lived, and continue to live, in a cauldron simmering at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. The most devastating wars, clashes, and conflicts have taken place right here. We have often fought wars that were not our own, and yet they have always unfolded on our soil,” the president remarked.