Norway, the United States, the United Kingdom and the EU countries in the UN Security Council condemn Belarus’ treatment of people staying at the country’s border with Poland.
–– The tactics are unacceptable and necessitate strong international reactions and cooperation to hold Belarus responsible, the countries write in a statement. The statement came after an emergency meeting of the Security Council on the situation on Thursday.
Poland says the government of President Alexander Lukashenko has lured around 2,000 migrants, mostly Kurds from the Middle East, to Belarus and then sent them on to Poland in retaliation for sanctions.
The people now live in a tent camp on the border, while the temperature is approaching minus degrees. The EU country Poland refuses to let them in.
Western security delegations say they condemn “the orchestrated gathering of people whose lives and well-being have been endangered for political purposes by Belarus”.
Furthermore, they say that Belarus has created the crisis with “the goal of destabilizing neighboring countries and the EU’s external border, and to divert attention away from its own, growing human rights violations”.
Russia is not mentioned in the statement. Putin and Lukashenko are allies, and before the meeting Russia rejected claims from Western countries that Moscow had negotiated with Minsk to send migrants across the border to Poland.
On Thursday, Lukashenko promised to answer whether the EU would impose further sanctions.
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