MINSK, August 3. /TASS/. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry views accusations of senior EU officials who claim that Minsk instigated a migration crisis in the border with Lithuania as groundless, spokesperson for the ministry Anatoly Glaz told TASS on Tuesday.
"It runs counter to the reality. We are carefully reading through all these statements and fail to find any true desire to address the problem, logic or rationality. Only cliched unfounded accusations and threats," the spokesperson noted.
According to him, EU officials and Lithuanian authorities "have been consistently and deliberately destroying the border control cooperation system that took years to be established with Belarus with their own hands" in the last year. In particular, Glaz pointed to the fact that Vilnius blocked financing under the readmission agreement signed by the EU, suspended all contacts with relevant Belarusian colleagues, brazenly severed all ties between law enforcement agencies and so on. ""Uttering ungrounded accusations, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is ignoring the fact that since April 2021 Belarus has repeatedly and consistently signaled to Brussels, via all the scarce cannels it has left, about its readiness to hold consultations on migration problems, despite the suspension of cooperation programs earlier agreed with the European Union. I would like to stress: we have received no response to our proposals, just like to other initiatives in most important spheres," he said.
The spokesperson emphasized, "there is still no sign of anyone in the EU supporting dialogue aimed at joint resolution of this problem." "All speakers are also carefully avoiding the true reasons that provoke mass flows of illegal migrants from Iraq and other countries where the West has vested interests. Refugees and migrants flee to the EU not just through Belarus and not in such quantities as through other routes of which there are plenty," Glaz added.
Earlier, top EU diplomat Josep Borrell accused Minsk of directing a migration flow towards Lithuania. He underlined, "to use migrants as a weapon, pushing people against the borders, is unacceptable," noting that such moves violate European values and principles. He also noted that Brussels would consider imposing sanctions against the people who are deemed responsible for transporting migrants into Lithuania through Belarus.