MINSK -- Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has said that all Jews in Belarus should be taken "under control."

Lukashenka made the remark following his annual state-of-the-nation address on April 29, when he launched into a verbal attack on the owner of Belarus's largest Internet service provider, Yury Ziser.

Speaking to Syamyon Shapira, the chairman of the Minsk Regional Executive Committee, Lukashenka criticized Ziser and said, "I asked you a year ago to take all Jews in Belarus under control."

"We have not been able to normalize that man," Lukashenka said of Ziser.

Reached by telephone in Amsterdam, Ziser told RFE/RL he did not understand how it was possible to "normalize" Jews, who are not an organization.

Lukashenka has made anti-Semitic remarks in the past.

In 2007, he was criticized by Israel after he called the Belarusian city of Babruysk a "pigsty" and said that its condition could be explained by the fact that many Jews used to live there.