TEHRAN, March 21 (RIA Novosti) - Iran's president Tuesday congratulated Alexander Lukashenko on his reelection as president of Belarus.
"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has expressed confidence that during Alexander Lukashenko's new presidential term, relations between Iran and Belarus will continue to advance in all spheres," the Iranian presidential press service said.
Ahmadinejad said he hoped Lukashenko would make an official visit to Iran within the next few months.
Lukashenko, dubbed "the last dictator in Europe" by Washington, won a landslide victory Sunday that had been widely predicted by both his supporters and the opposition. Turnout at the elections was 92.6%, officials said Monday.
Despite criticism in the West, Lukashenko, 53, is popular at home for providing relative economic stability in the turbulent 1990s compared to other former Soviet states.
Lukashenko said Belarus' presidential elections had come under unprecedented pressure from outside the country, and added that the "color revolution" similar to the one that had brought pro-Western authorities to power in Ukraine and Georgia, had failed in Belarus.
Opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich, who garnered 6% of the vote, said the European Union and the OSCE, Europe's major election monitor did not recognize the elections. He said protestors had come to the demonstration from Ukraine, Lithuania, Georgia and Azerbaijan, and that the British ambassador in Belarus had attended during the night.
