© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A migrant lady carries a baby as they exit a tent outdoors the transport and logistics centre close to the Belarusian-Polish border within the Grodno area, Belarus November 21, 2021. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
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MOSCOW/WARSAW (Reuters) -Belarus doesn’t need confrontation with Poland however needs the European Union to absorb 2,000 migrants stranded on its border, President Alexander Lukashenko mentioned on Monday, after Warsaw warned that tensions over the trapped folks may flare up.
The EU accuses Belarus of flying in hundreds of individuals from the Center East and pushing them to cross into the EU by way of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia in response to European sanctions. Minsk denies fomenting the disaster.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned on Sunday that the migrant disaster on the Belarus border could also be a prelude to “one thing a lot worse”, and Poland’s border guard mentioned Belarusian forces have been nonetheless ferrying migrants to the frontier.
Lukashenko, as quoted by the state-owned Belta information company, mentioned he didn’t need issues to escalate.
“We have to get via to the Poles, to each Pole, and present them that we’re not barbarians, that we do not need confrontation. We do not want it. As a result of we perceive that if we go too far, warfare is unavoidable,” he mentioned.
“And that will probably be a disaster. We perceive this completely effectively. We do not need any sort of flare-up.”
Poland has threatened to chop a prepare hyperlink between the 2 nations if the scenario doesn’t enhance, and Lukashenko was quoted as saying that risk may backfire.
Rail site visitors could possibly be diverted to run via a battle zone in japanese Ukraine in such a situation, he mentioned.
Final Thursday, the European Fee and Germany publicly rejected a Belarus proposal made that very same day that EU nations soak up 2,000 of the migrants at the moment on its territory.
However Lukashenko, in accordance with Belta, mentioned on Monday he should insist Germany soak up some migrants, and complained that the EU was not making contact with Minsk on the problem.
“I am ready for the EU to reply,” he mentioned. “They do not even have a look at it (the issue). And even what she (German Chancellor Angela Merkel) promised me – contacts. They aren’t even getting in contact.”
Belarus’ plan would additionally embody Minsk sending some 5,000 migrants again residence, and Lukashenko mentioned Belarus was making ready a second flight to ship migrants residence on the finish of the month. Over 400 Iraqis have been despatched again to Iraq final week, within the first such repatriation flight since August.
Poland says Belarusian forces have been nonetheless ferrying migrants to the frontier, regardless of clearing the principle migrant camps by the border final week.
A gaggle of round 150 migrants tried to interrupt via the border fence close to the village of Dubicze Cerkiewne on Sunday, the Polish Border Guard mentioned on Monday.
“Teams are making such makes an attempt and Belarusian officers have gotten increasingly more aggressive,” Stanislaw Zaryn, spokesman for Poland’s safety providers, wrote on Twitter (NYSE:).
Lithuanian border guard says 70 migrants have been prevented from getting into on Sunday. Two Ukrainian residents have been arrested on Sunday, in two separate however related incidents, as they arrived to the border to select up the migrants, presumably for additional transportation.
