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Minsk asks Warsaw to give up provocations against Belarus

At the same time Minsk responded with satisfaction to Poland’s promise “there are no claims to the sovereign territory of Belarus”

MINSK, October 13 (Itar-Tass) —— Minsk has addressed Warsaw with a call for giving up provocative actions against Belarus.

“Poland’s pledge to refrain from provocative actions will allow for eliminating many unnecessary problems in our relations,” Belarussian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Savinykh said after the Belarussian ambassador in Warsaw had been invited to the Polish Foreign Ministry.

He said “we cannot ignore actions by the Polish authorities aimed at politicizing mutual relations with the Polish ethnic minority in Belarus and the disbursement of financial resources for intervention in the internal political processes in our country, and also irresponsible statements by top Polish officials regarding Belarus.”

At the same time Minsk responded with satisfaction to Poland’s promise “there are no claims to the sovereign territory of Belarus.”

Belarussian ambassador to Poland Viktor Gaisyonok was invited to the Polish Foreign Ministry in connection with statements Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko made at a news conference for the Russian mass media on October 7. Asked about Minsk’s absence from the recent Eastern Partnership summit the Belarussian president said that the Polish leaders “even in their dreams” see the border between the two countries lying near Minsk, that they are “unable to reconcile themselves with the fact that the border is there beyond Grodno.”

“We are not going to yield to Poland’s provocations, they are our neighbors, we are in no mood of having a fight with them. But it is the Poles who set the tune in this (EU policies towards Belarus), he said. On September 11 the Polish Foreign Ministry issued a statement to say that it had invited Belarussian ambassador Viktor Gaisyonok for a conversation and drew his attention to the fact that Lukashenko’s statements, ascribing to the Polish authorities the intention of revising the state border are devoid of any foundation.

“Independent Poland has never questioned the inviolability of the Polish-Belarussian border,” the statement runs.