“I want to tell you the same that I once told Boris Nikolayevich: if you think that Siberia is a stranger to us, then you are mistaken. It a dear region for us. It is dear for also because several thousand Belarusians live there today. I don't think they're causing you any problems. Therefore, Siberia is a dear region for us, and Kuzbass, the gem of Siberia, is, of course, close to us,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

The head of state said that he visited Kemerovo Oblast in the late 1990s. Aman Tuleyev was governor of Kuzbass. “We discussed our relations quite frankly. We were very friendly, and our views largely coincided. We discussed high prices of the equipment we supplied there. He told me frankly that it was too expensive and he knew why. There were a lot of mediators. I told him: ‘There's a simple solution to this problem’. I told him: Aman, let’s agree on the following: I bring here goods at the prices of Belarus, and you sell them to whoever you think necessary, take the markup from sales and so on. Then there will be no complaints.’ I clearly remember my meeting with that governor and my proposal,” the president said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko admitted that the mediation issue may not have been fully resolved. “The mediators have always been, but they must be responsible. You know where their money goes. They make big markups. If there is such a need, for our part, we control prices very tightly. Moreover, all large companies that trade with Kuzbass are state-owned. They are manageable and understand the goals of our relations. We can take it under control if you can do it on your part,” the head of state added. 

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