Dec 16 (Reuters) – Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, in an interview made public in part on Tuesday, called for swift action to end the conflict in Ukraine while the United States remained engaged in diplomatic efforts.
Lukashenko is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and allowed Belarus’s territory to be used for Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
He said U.S. President Donald Trump was right to press for a rapid resolution, adding that had his policies been in place at the outset, the conflict might not have occurred.
“A lot now depends on the position of Trump and the United States of America. The main thing is that Trump not back away from this position,” Lukashenko told U.S. television outlet Newsmax. Excerpts of the interview were posted on the Belarusian state news agency BelTA.
“He is a man with a strong personality, sometimes impulsive. Let him not give up on this, throw up his hands and walk away. If he makes firm moves in this way, there will be results.”
“If everything depended strictly on Trump, the war would have been over long ago…But this is a process with many sides and Trump cannot solve it all himself… The conflict has to be frozen from top to bottom. Once people are not being killed, you can sit down and agree on whatever you like.”
Lukashenko said failure to halt the war could “end badly for Europe and the entire world. It is bound to grow into some sort of global conflict.”
Trump has led efforts to find a solution to end the conflict and an initial U.S. peace proposal, criticised by many in Europe as slanted in favour of Russia, has undergone changes.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials have held consultations on the proposed agreement, along with European officials, including two days of talks in Berlin this week.
Trump has expressed frustration with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy over a failure to agree on an end to nearly four years of the war. Russian forces hold about 19% of Ukraine’s territory and are engaged in a slow drive west to secure control over its eastern Donbas region.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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