MINSK, 24 August (BelTA) – The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has released a statement after Poland sent a number of trucks to the Belarusian-Polish border in order to deliver humanitarian aid to refugees from Middle East countries, BelTA has learned. The truck convoy is allegedly waiting for the permission to enter Belarus.
According to Press Secretary of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Anatoly Glaz, the Polish side has created a very strange situation and is doing its best to mistake a wish for the reality. Poland places some domestic political considerations of its own above actual work and interests of common people, albeit they are refugees from troubled countries, the official said.
According to Anatoly Glaz, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a formal note to Belarus and sent the convoy to the border without waiting for the response. “As if Belarus were not a sovereign state and there is no need to wait for the answer. Why did they have to send the convoy? If Poland truly cared for the refugees, it could give them what they need without fuss. Moreover, as we can see from mass media reports vehicles can easily reach the location of the refugees from the Polish side. Moreover, the refugees say they had been detained in Poland and transported to the border. By any definition vehicles can easily drive to the location. But instead of resolving the problem [Poland] had to arrange this multimedia performance,” the official noted.
The press secretary stated that after multiple examples of gratuitous medical aid provided to injured people in other sections of the border it is obvious that the Belarusian side practices as a humane attitude to all these people as possible.
The press secretary stressed that today the refugees, who are staying at the border line, demand international protection in Poland in full compliance with their rights. They demand protection from a country, which was directly involved in the provocation of migration flows from Afghanistan as a participant of the USA-led coalition. “It is understandable that Polish actions to drive and expel asylum seekers contradict both resolutions of the European Union and Poland's Constitution as well as a number of international documents. The anti-Belarusian campaign that has been launched in these circumstances looks even more ridiculous,” the official stressed.
Anatoly Glaz noted that Belarus does not create and is not going to create border problems. “We had exemplary border cooperation with neighboring countries, including Poland. The relevant programs were in place. Technical aid projects were implemented to serve interests of citizens of the European Union and Belarus and to prevent such situations. Then the European Union unilaterally put it all on hold. One can invent stories about hybrid warfare as much as they like but the border should be a line for cooperation and any problems at the border are successfully resolved only through a mutually respectful dialogue,” the official summed it up.
