Kazakh president calls for discussion on Russian-Belarusian alliance at Eurasian forum

May 24, BPN. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has urged the participants in a Eurasian forum in Moscow to discuss the Russian-Belarusian political alliance being part of the Eurasian Economic Union, according to his press office.

Belarus and Russia established the Union State in 1999 to create a common economic space and coordinate their foreign and defense policies. The EEU emerged sixteen years later, and today comprises Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. It ensures the free movement of goods, services, capital and labor, and has a gross domestic product of $2.045 trillion.

Tokayev said the Union State was unique because it implemented the formula “two countries – one state,” recognizing the Belarusians and the Russians as one people with a common culture and history. Belarus and Russia even share nuclear weapons, he said, in an apparent reference to Putin’s announcement earlier this year that he would deploy tactical nukes in Belarus.

Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are integrated “on another level,” he continued. “For us, integration within the EEU is primarily of an economic nature,” he told the forum, which included Vladimir Putin and Alaksandr Łukašenka. “We must take this reality into account. How are we going to work in these circumstances?” Takayev asked.