Lukashenko says he won't seek another term as Belarusian president

Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko has said he is not seeking another term in office.

"No, I don't intend to do that," Lukashenko said in a video interview released on Friday with the US Time magazine in Minsk.

The 70-year-old has ruled Belarus as president since 1994, aligning the country closely with Moscow under Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He is due to serve until 2030 after winning another term in January in elections that were seen internationally as neither free nor fair.

A wave of mass protests erupted against Lukashenko's rule in 2020 after an election that demonstrators believed was rigged.

On the fifth anniversary of the protests, human rights organizations have highlighted that around 1,200 political prisoners remain behind bars in Belarus after the demonstrations were brutally put down.

Lukashenko said he had wanted to leave office earlier, but nobody could accuse him of being a traitor and abandoning his country.

The longtime dictator denied that his youngest son Nikolai, 20, would one day succeed him.

While Lukashenko did not rule out the possibility that his successor would pursue a different course in office, the next person to lead Belarus "shouldn't just throw things overboard straight away," he argued.

The interview with a US media outlet is seen as a sign of thawing relations with the United States under President Donald Trump, who is set to meet Putin to discuss an end to the war in Ukraine in the coming days.

The state news agency Belta reported flattering comments by Lukashenko, saying he hopes to be in as good shape as Trump is at 79 years of age.