London: British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has accused Moscow of bearing responsibility for the migrant crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border.
“Russia has a clear responsibility here. It must press the Belarusian authorities to end the crisis and enter into dialogue,” Truss said in her article published by The Telegraph on Saturday.
She accused Minsk of using migrants “as pawns” and of undermining regional security.
“We are not just standing side by side with Poland as it bears the brunt of this shameful manufactured migrant crisis, but also the others in the Visegrad Four – Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – and our friends in the Baltics and Ukraine,” Truss said.
According to The Telegraph, UK officials fear that the migrant crisis at the Polish border could soon reach closer to the United Kingdom.
On Saturday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell discussed the situation on the Belarusian-Polish border with the foreign ministers of Poland and Lithuania and said that the issue will also be brought up at the EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) next week.
Belarusian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Aleinik said on Saturday that Minsk does not see the European Union making any serious efforts to hold dialogue with Belarus to resolve the ongoing migrant crisis.
Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have been accusing Belarus of orchestrating a migrant crisis to get back at Brussels for sanctions against the government of President Alexander Lukashenko. The Belarusian leader has rejected the accusations, saying that his cash-strapped country can no longer afford tight border controls.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Russia is not involved in the migration crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland and that Moscow is making attempts to assist conflict resolution through contacts with authorities.
