President’s Press Secretary on how many media outlets asked for interview with Lukashenko back in 2015
In 2015, there were hundreds of requests from the world media outlets for an interview with Head of State Aleksandr Lukashenko – as noted by Natalya Eismont, the Press Secretary of Belarus’ President, in her talk with the Belarus 1 TV channel, BelTA reports
"The situation developing around the country, the general state of affairs – such as an acute phase of the conflict in southeastern Ukraine, the Normandy Four talks in Minsk, and the eve of the Presidential election in Belarus – were dictating terms. They definitely were fuelling the interest in our Belarusian agenda among the world's media. There were a lot of requests to talk to the President. I cannot say exactly how many of them were back in 2015, of course, but they numbered hundreds," Ms. Eismont noted, adding that – if every request had been met (which was impossible), then the President's schedule could have consisted of interviews, and nothing more.
"One of the most headline-making conversations of 2015, which I remember very well, was an interview with the largest American agency, Bloomberg. It took place at the end of March, just over a month since the historic negotiations of the Normandy Four at the Palace of Independence in Minsk," Ms. Eismont emphasised. "Of course, the arrived journalist was mostly interested in the details and assessments of those talks by the President."
The Press Secretary added that the Head of State had spoken very openly then, without self-complacency. "He said it was very dangerous for that moment not to be the silence before the storm. Despite the Minsk agreements, he said that peace in Ukraine was still very far away. The most important point is probably that he spoke about the US crucial role in all those processes. He said peace would be established quickly in Ukraine if the United States wished – and vice versa: there would be no peace if America did not want it,” she said.
Ms. Eismont stated that, as now, the President spoke about the need for negotiations in 2015. "He voiced that openly and purposefully – in order to be heard. However, the power players pretended not to hear, and – as we can see now – they did not want to. That was a very important conversation, a very serious interview. Actually, it was not the only one of such scales,” she added.
