MINSK. March 18 (Interfax) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said he has no plans to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus and does not think that a real situation could emerge where this measure could become necessary.
"I do not plan to deploy nuclear weapons here, to make nuclear weapons here or to create and use these nuclear weapons against anyone. The Belarusian leadership and I have never had such plans," Lukashenko said in an interview with the Japanese television channel TBS.
An excerpt from the interview was published on Friday by the First Man's Pool Telegram channel, which is close to the presidential press service.
"It is a fantasy made up by the West," he said.
Nor could there be any real situation where it could become necessary to station nuclear weapons in Belarus, Lukashenko said.
"No, I do not think that such a situation could occur. I think that not everyone in America and in the West has become so crazy that we would have to tackle this problem through nuclear weapons," he said.
Lukashenko said on February 27 that nuclear weapons would again be deployed in Belarus should the West station similar weapons in the vicinity of the Belarusian border.