MINSK, 28 October (BelTA) – There are no reasons for Belarus to protect the European Union from migrants in the current situation. Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko made the relevant statement during the 3rd Minsk International Conference on Eurasian Security, BelTA has learned.
Aleksandr Lukashenko said: “How can one seriously get on board with the European Union’s demands for us to ‘resolve the problem of migrants’ as they put it when, for instance, Brussels, Poland, and the Baltic states have emphatically torn up all the previous agreements and refuse to maintain simple communication even about routine affairs? The logic is simple: if you have destroyed bridges, don’t make us set up ferries. We will not protect you with a noose around our necks. Sanctions are a noose on the neck of the Belarusian nation and you demand that we protect you. It won’t happen!”
The head of state remarked that the Polish nation had forced Polish authorities to pay attention to migration and to try to resolve the problem. Aleksandr Lukashenko noted that there are people in Poland and the European Union, who organize this migrant traffic: “Right up to Germany bandit gangs have been set up. They move these migrants from Belarus over there, to Germany. That’s the problem. Germans stay silent. It is clear why. But as we meet with German civil servants and start talking about migration and about Poland, they close their eyes. They know what is going on.”
The head of state suggested naming at least one reason for Belarus to defend the European Union from migrants.
“First of all, due to the massive pressure of sanctions we have neither resources to spare nor moral obligations to solve problems of those, who have enforced these sanctions. We are getting strangled with the sanctions and they tell us to protect them!” the Belarusian leader remarked. “But we’ve been honest. Once they introduced sanctions and severed relations with us on migration affairs, I told them honestly and sincerely: ‘That’s it, guys. We will not catch anyone here and will not protect you’. No, we will not help anyone. People will find their way over there on their own. To the place they have been invited to go.”
Secondly, the entire infrastructure, all the projects on transboundary cooperation have been terminated by Belarus’ western neighbors on a unilateral basis.
Thirdly, the West has invited these migrants to come. Aleksandr Lukashenko recalled how Germany’s former chancellor Angela Merkel had essentially extended this invitation: “Come! We have no workers!” “Well, if they have come to your country (migrants also come to our country), then you should create conditions for them on par with those your own people enjoy. You need to see migrants as people. That’s what we do,” the president said. “Who prevents rich Europe from doing it? They used to call it an orchard. You just have to do it. And then they will work at your Volkswagen and Mercedes factories and there may be no problems. But you have invited them and wanted to make slaves out of them. Well, this is what you get!”
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