By Mark Trevelyan
Dec 18 (Reuters) - Belarus is nearing a major deal to restore relations with the United States but will not give up its close ties to Russia, President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday.
Speaking five days after freeing a large group of political prisoners in exchange for an easing of U.S. sanctions, the veteran authoritarian leader said he expected the thawing of ties to lead to a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.
"Everything is moving, as they put it, towards a big deal...
Everything is moving towards me and Trump having to meet and reaching an agreement," said Lukashenko, who until Trump's return to the White House this year was treated as a pariah by the West because of his human rights record and support for Russia's war in Ukraine.
The U.S. side says Lukashenko has offered good advice as it seeks a breakthrough to end the Ukraine war. U.S. officials have told Reuters that Washington also hopes, by engaging with him, to peel him away to some degree from Russian President Vladimir Putin, his close ally.
The exiled Belarusian opposition says any such attempt is pointless because Lukashenko is heavily dependent on Putin's political and economic support.
Lukashenko said the two sides were discussing the reopening of the U.S. embassy in Minsk, which was closed immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and the required security arrangements.
He said the rapprochement with the United States would not come at the expense of any other country, and that he and Putin had a "complete understanding" of what was going on.
Belarus has pursued close ties with Russia ever since he took power in 1994, and "as long as I am president, we will not deviate from this policy".
Belarus this week took delivery of the Oreshnik, he said - a new hypersonic missile that Russia fired at Ukraine for the first time last year.
Lukashenko, addressing the country's highest constitutional forum, the All-Belarusian People's Assembly, said he would never allow a repeat of 2020, when mass protests broke out after a presidential election that the opposition accused him of stealing.
In the course of a speech and question-and-answer session that ran for many hours, he ruled out negotiating with "thugs" in the exiled opposition, and spoke mockingly of prominent opponents who were among the 123 prisoners released last weekend.
One of them, Viktar Babaryka, was looking well after working in a penal colony stoking boilers, he said. Babaryka suffered health problems while in prison and underwent surgery in 2023 after doctors found fluid on his lungs.
"He's lost weight, he looks fine, a handsome man. So why be upset with me?" Lukashenko said.
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
