Makei: The EU is realizing the need to cooperate with Belarus

          European partners gradually come to understand that they need to cooperate with Belarus, Belarus’ Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei has said in an interview with the Belarus 1 TV channel. “We are ready for an open, sincere and equal dialogue with the European Union. I think that our European partners are realizing little by little that we need to cooperate and engage in a dialogue whenever it is possible and beneficial for Belarus and the European Union. We discussed the matter during my visit to Latvia and Lithuania on 27 February-1 March. Among the things we touched upon was Belarus’ participation in the Eastern Partnership initiative,” Vladimir Makei said. He believes that given the recent developments in Ukraine, the format of this initiative needs to be revised. “One should not set out the same requirements to all the partner states of the Eastern Partnership. We want to have good relations with the European Union; however the level of these relations should be different. The European Union should also be guided by this principle, it should abandon its one-size-fits-all approach to the partner states,” the Foreign Minister said.