MINSK, 2 July (BelTA) – The West will not be able to exploit the migrant crisis against Belarus. Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko made the statement during a solemn assembly held in the Palace of the Republic on 2 July in anticipation of Independence Day, BelTA has learned.
In his speech the head of state also touched upon the migration situation at the border. “Why am I speaking about this problem? Because today it is used to pressure us in the West. Particularly our ‘friends’, our closest neighbors are working hard on it: Poland’s leadership,” Aleksandr Lukashenko explained. “They have already gone so far that… President Duda went to Xi Jinping and complained about Lukashenko. He asked Xi Jinping to influence Lukashenko and Putin so that they would end this migration.”
The president suggested answering the key questions concerning reasons for migration. Where do the people run from? Where to? And why? “Where do these people run from? From the countries that Americans and their allies have destroyed. We know it. We see it. Who flees across Belarus? Primarily people from Afghanistan. They sell everything they have, save several thousand U.S. dollars and flee,” Aleksandr Lukashenko pointed out. In his words, these poor people need money primarily for the sake of making payments in Poland to those, who can organize their transit to Germany, and it is a well-known fact. Migrants are intent on getting into Germany. They were once invited to go to that country. “If you invited them, then accommodate them,” the head of state noted reasonably. “You invited them to come. They are coming to you.”
The president reminded that Belarus had been very seriously cooperating with the West before the West introduced sanctions against Belarus. Cooperation went as far as the signing of a readmission agreement. “Then all of it was scrapped [by the West]. ‘We don’t need that.’ Okay then. Do I need it?” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. “We will not restrain them.”
Apart from that, the migrant traffic has been influenced by the aggravation of the conflict in Ukraine. “One way or another the land routes converged in Belarus. And I said it plainly: we are not going to catch them. Our job is to ensure the security of our own nation,” the Belarusian leader said.
In the past Poland used water cannons against migrants in cold months of the year and beatings. Now these migrants get killed and their bodies are dumped at the Belarusian border. “We are already tired of showing all these facts. And where are European democracies? Where are Americans, who root for human rights?” the president asked rhetorical questions.
“The key thing is that I have no intention of ordering the border service, the army, and the rest, the civilians to defend the European Union at the border of Belarus and Poland. You’ve started choking us and force us to protect you from these poor people,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
The construction of the fence at the border will not help Poland restrain the flow of migrants in this situation, Aleksandr Lukashenko believes. When they want to, migrants can scale this fence only to get shot at on the other side.
The head of state warned that it is futile to use the migrant crisis in an attempt to pressure Belarus: “You will not be able to use migration flows against us. We, our reporters should more broadly demonstrate the truth about migrant flows.”
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