MINSK, Belarus, April 22 (UPI) -- Belarusians will fight for their "plot of land" if Western countries continue political threats, the country's president warned.
Alexander Lukashenko, the first and only president of an independent Belarus, complained this week that none of the major Western allies sent condolences for the victims of an April 11 attack on a Metro station outside of Minsk that killed 13 people and left another 150 wounded.
Lukashenko said in a speech that the West was putting political and economic pressure on his country and was dancing "on the bones" of the Metro victims, Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti reports.
He complained his adversaries were trying to "strangle the country with a slipknot" in an effort to force him out of office.
"If they try to bend us, to bring us down to our knees, we will at least resist," he was quoted as saying. "We will fight for our plot of land."
Lukashenko, who took office in 1994, extended his tenure as president in Belarus in what was widely considered a fraudulent December election. Authorities arrested six presidential candidates during the campaign and put another 600 anti-government protesters behind bars.
