Cooperation between Belarus and Georgia should not be viewed as detriment to Russia, said Alexander Lukashenko, who began a fourth term as President of Belarus after Sunday’s elections amid large street protests against his re-election.

“Georgia is an interesting country for us, including in terms of energy transit,” he said and added that Belarus bought Azerbaijani oil for number of times and used Georgia as a transit route.
 
“Prospects for our cooperation are not bad,” Belarus state news agency, BelTA, reported quoting Lukashenko as saying at a news conference on December 20.

“But you should not understand our relations as a cooperation not in favor of Russia; not at all. We respect and appreciate you very much. Georgians are very decent people. But let’s build our relations together with Russia. Georgian, Russian and Belarus people will benefit from that,” he said when responding a question from a Georgian journalist about relations between Tbilisi and Minsk.