Poland: Belarus eyes using Afghan migrants as border pawns

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VILNIUS – Poland’s person connected Sunday warned against much imaginable migrant pressures connected the European Union’s borderline with Belarus, this clip coming from Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki spoke successful Vilnius, the superior of Lithuania, pursuing talks with Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte astir ways of solving the “very hard situation” astatine the borders of EU members with Belarus. He was connected a one-day circuit of meetings with the premier ministers of EU members Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which person besides been deed by the migrant pressures.

All leaders stressed the request for acting jointly and said the borderline situation created by Belarus has strengthened their cooperation.

The EU says the caller surge of migrants connected its eastbound borders has been orchestrated Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's authorities successful retaliation for EU sanctions placed connected Belarus aft its crackdown connected peaceful ideology protesters. It calls the determination "a hybrid attack'' connected the full 27-nation bloc. Belarus denies the charge.

Poland's Border Guard said Sunday it prevented a forceful amerciable introduction by immoderate 100 “very assertive foreigners” connected Saturday who had been brought to the fenced borderline adjacent the colony of Czeremcha by Belarus forces.

Morawiecki said helium expected the migrant pressures connected Poland and the EU to continue, but present from a antithetic region, claiming cognition of “diplomatic” contacts that Belarus and Russia had with Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.

“There is simply a menace of an adjacent much hard scenario," Morawiecki said. “There volition astir most apt beryllium an effort astatine utilizing the situation successful Afghanistan arsenic a caller enactment successful the migration crisis, putting to usage the West's remorse related to the disorderly pullout from Afghanistan."

In Latvia's superior of Riga, Morawiecki said "only the afloat pullback of the migrants and steps toward deescalation tin pb backmost to immoderate benignant of a constructive script with Lukashenko.”

Earlier successful Tallinn, the superior of Estonia, Morawiecki said Poland was acceptable to lend financially to instrumentality flights location for migrants who person been stranded astatine the border's damp wood for weeks. He said Warsaw was besides acceptable to adjacent each borderline crossings with Belarus to measurement up the economical unit connected Lukashenko's regime. The Polish roadworthy crossing adjacent Kuznica was closed past week.

Lithuania's Simonyte stressed that the EU should coordinate each further actions connected Belarus with countries astatine the forefront of these attacks — Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

“The European Commission has present taken implicit the method talks with Minsk. It is precise important that nary decisions are taken that volition not let the concern to beryllium resolved," Simonyte told reporters, informing against immoderate abstracted Poland-Belarus discussions.

Poland is pushing the migrants back, saying it is protecting the borderline for each of Europe and NATO. It has received words of enactment from the EU, NATO and the U.S.

A fewer migrants person died successful the forests straddling the border. Others person abandoned hopes of reaching Europe and were flown backmost to their location countries past week.

Poland's Tatar assemblage successful the eastbound colony of Bohoniki connected Sunday held a 3rd ceremonial for a migrant, burying a 37-year-old Yemeni, Mustafa Mouhamad Murshid al-Raimi, who was recovered Sept. 19 successful the wood with hypothermia.

The EU Commission connected Sunday leveled further accusations against Lukashenko.

“In the crisis, Lukashenko behaved similar an unlicensed circuit relation who sold costly question packages to the EU, lone for them to illness connected arrival,” EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told Germany’s Welt americium Sonntag newspaper. “Families and children were deceived and lured into a calamity that meant a batch of suffering,”

Poland's Border Guard says it has registered implicit 34,000 attempts astatine illegally crossing into Poland this year, including implicit 17,000 successful October and implicit 6,000 successful November truthful far. Germany has registered a fewer 1000 who person reached its territory from Belarus.

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Kirsten Grieshaber successful Berlin, Jari Tanner successful Tallinn and Monika Scislowska successful Warsaw contributed.

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Follow each AP stories connected planetary migration astatine https://apnews.com/hub/migration.

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