Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko told the army on Monday that he would not have hesitated to call on it to handle street protests against his re-election last December if the unrest had gotten out of hand.
"If a situation had developed in such a way that the country had been really under threat, I would not have hesitated to use the armed forces," he told the military leadership, local news agencies said.
Riot police on Dec. 19 rounded up several hundred demonstrators and several opposition candidates who ran against Lukashenko.
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