MOSCOW, November 16. /TASS/. Russian and Belarusian Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, continued to discuss the migration crisis at Belarus’ borders with the European Union, the Kremlin press service said on Tuesday after their telephone conversation.
"The presidents continued to exchange views on the migration crisis at Belarus’ border with the EU countries, taking into account Alexander Lukashenko’s phone call with German acting Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday," it said.
Earlier, the migration crisis was the focus of Putin’s telephone conversations with Lukashenko and Merkel, who said after it that she had asked the Russian president to exert influence over his Belarusian counterpart on the situation. The Russian leader, in turn, called for resuming contacts between EU nations and Belarus in order to resolve this problem.
On November 15, Lukashenko and Merkel had a 50-minute telephone conversation and discussed ways out of the migration crisis. They stressed the necessity of delivering humanitarian assistance to the migrants staying at Belarus’ borders with the European Union and agreed to continue contacts on this topic.
The migration crisis at Belarus’ border with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia deteriorated dramatically on November 8, when several thousand migrants approached the Polish border and set up camp there. From time to time they try to break through the fences and cross into Poland, but are stopped by Polish law enforcers.
EU countries accuse Minsk of deliberate escalation of the crisis and call for more sanctions against Belarus. Meanwhile, Lukashenko said that the blame for this situation rests on Western countries because people are fleeing their countries gripped by hostilities provoked by their actions.