Merkel-Lukashenko conversation on refugees

She is the first Western leader to communicate with a Belarusian president. Criticism of the Greens for a “disastrous message” and de facto recognition.

Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke yesterday with President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko. During the conversation, which lasted almost an hour, the two politicians spoke, according to a German government spokesman, about the situation “on the border between Belarus and the European Union, especially the need to provide humanitarian assistance to refugees and migrants there.” Mr Lukashenko and Mr Merkel have agreed to stay in touch.

The fact that the German chancellor was the first Western leader to contact the Belarusian president after his controversial victory in the presidential election in August 2020 provoked criticism from the Greens. Foreign Ministry spokesman Omid Nuripur speaks of “disastrous message”: Taking the initiative to contact him, Merkel acknowledged the de facto election of Alexander Lukashenko, he said this morning. on German radio (Deutschlandfunk).

Ambiguous reactions

At the same time, the Green politician criticized the push backs of refugees from Poland to Belarus and argued that people gathered at the border should be given the opportunity to apply for asylum in the EU.

A vertically opposite view is supported by the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Haiko Maas. The Social Democrat politician rejects the reception of refugees from Belarus to Germany and is in favor of their return to their countries of origin. It should be made clear, “that the EU will not allow criminals like Lukashenko,” he stressed on the first channel of German television, ARD.

Both Haiko Maas and Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Solz support Poland’s right to erect a fence on its border with Belarus. “If the Polish government takes such a decision, then we have no right to say that it should not do so,” Soltz said.

Panagiotis Kouparanis, Berlin

Source: Deutsche Welle