President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, in an interview to Euronews stated that the money to pay the debt for Russian gas was lent by his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev. "I appealed to the President Ilham Aliyev, he lent me 200 million dollars in a day, even less than in a day. We paid the debt to Gazprom — 100% paid off", the head of state noted.
Alexander Lukashenko reported that he had requested the top-management of Russian gas monopoly to delay the debt payment. «We asked them:» Give us a respite for two weeks to repay our debt». But our allies, the closest people to us, said:» No, we will not wait even a day», presidential press service quotes Belarusian leader.
The head of state also stressed that the gas conflict is «absolutely groundless from Russia’s position», because the dispute arose that time, when Gazprom had to pay 260 million dollars for Belarus’ services on gas transit. At the same time, according to Alexander Lukashenko, «we had a debt to them for a period when we were negotiating (we had paid for gas at old price) — 187 million dollars (they admitted that 187 million)».
Belarusian leader also stressed that conflicts like this «have taken place not for the first time between Russia and transport transit states — Ukraine and Belarus».
