Lukashenko: West will not be able to make the whole world bend to its standards

Western countries and the United States will not succeed in its efforts to make the whole world stick to the standards they have invented in the field of human rights, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said in the interview with CNN.The head of state is convinced that there are simply no one-size-fits-all standards in this field. “These standards were made up by you in the West and you want the whole world stick to them. You won't succeed,” the president said. To illustrate his point Aleksandr Lukashenko mentioned attempts to come up with single standards for holding elections and human rights.Aleksandr Lukashenko once again dismissed accusations of using migrants to retaliate against the European Union for its sanctions and for hosting opposition campaigners:

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    Can you prove the fact that I decided to take revenge on the European Union? Do you take me for a madman?. Belarus is a relatively small country in terms of area and population. It's about 210 thousand square kilometers, not 9.5 million, like the USA, for instance. Can a country of 10 million dictate terms to the European Union with half a billion? I don't think you take me for a madman, otherwise you wouldn't have come here. So I'm not going to retaliate against anyone.

      Listen, we have survived without the EU and we will go on without them for many years to come. The world is huge, there are other countries beside yours. It is a small world, but it is huge. Russia alone can consume everything we need to sell (selling our products is the most important thing for us, as we export about 40% of what we produce). And there is also China with 1.5 billion population, they are our friends, and we'll sell our products there. We will sell to Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India, we have normal relations with them. We can manage without you and the United States, and will continue to do so.

     Only weak people want revenge, and pardon my immodesty, I don't consider myself a weakling. And I don't deem it necessary to take revenge on the European Union. I'm not going to. It is your country that is taking revenge by leaving the European Union. Because you needed to have your revenge, while I'm not going to.

The President also invited the CNN journalist to visit the border area himself in order to see the real state of affairs there. “We will show you certain things, like when they were setting dogs on people, beating them up, using electroshock guns just to squeeze people out, kick them out of Poland,” the president said. “Poland and Lithuania were not their final destination, they wanted to reach Germany, where they'd been invited,” the Belarusian leader added.