President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday (22) that Belarus does not want a confrontation with Poland, but wants the European Union to take in 2,000 of the migrants stranded on its border, adding that if the crisis deteriorates “too much, war is inevitable”.
The EU accuses Belarus of transporting thousands of Middle Eastern migrants by plane and inducing them to enter the bloc via Poland, Lithuania and Latvia to retaliate against EU sanctions imposed on Belarus over Lukashenko’s quelling protests against his questioned re-election last year.
Lukashenko denies fomenting the migration crisis, but EU countries, including Germany, on Monday again rejected his call to accept immigrants in the limbo of the border.
On Sunday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the crisis could be a prelude to “something much worse,” and Poland’s border guard said Belarusian forces continued to send migrants to the border.
Lukashenko said he didn’t want things to get worse, according to a quote by the state news agency Belta.
“We have to reach out to the Poles, to every Pole, and show them that we are not barbarians, that we do not want confrontation. We don’t need this. Because we understand that if we go too far, war is inevitable.”
Under Belarus’s proposed plan, bloc countries, particularly Germany, would receive around 2,000 immigrants, while the Belarusian government would send another 5,000 immigrants home.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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