MINSK, November 8. /TASS/. Poland is moving military vehicles with heavy weapons to the Belarusian border, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei told the Belarusian news agency BelTA in connection with the crisis following attempts by crowds of migrants to storm the Polish border from Belarus.
Makei said that more than 2,000 deprived people, including women and children, were on the Belarusian border with Poland at the moment.
"Objectively, all of them are from problem countries that have experienced Western intervention. They say outright that they do not regard the territory of Belarus as their final destination. They wish to apply to the EU for protection. Instead, they are being gassed. Shots are being fired over their heads and military equipment with large caliber weapons is being moved to the border," BelTA quotes Makei as saying.
Makei said the situation on the Belarusian-Polish border was exceptionally strained.
"This is the first time we are having something like this in Belarus' recent history," he said. Makei hopes to discuss the refugee crisis with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov at the first joint board meeting of the Belarusian and Russian foreign ministries due on Wednesday.
Most of the refugees are Kurds
The Belarusian foreign minister accused Poland and other EU countries of violating human rights in the process of their confrontation on the border.
"Multiple violations of human rights and fundamental international agreements are beyond doubt," Makei said. "All this is happening in front of the very eyes of the European Union, which positions itself as the human rights champion and lectures everybody else on how to observe them."
Makei expressed surprise over the stance taken by the United States, which avoids intervention in the refugee crisis, although most of them are Kurds from the Middle East, who assist the US in the struggle against extremists in Syria and Iraq.
"One cannot but wonder over the United States’ tacit stance and the way it is watching calmly the Poles humiliate and maltreat one of its main allies - the Kurds. After all, most of the refugees on the Belarusian-Polish border are Kurds," Makei said. "Just recently, in September, US President Joe Biden said he would not ‘abandon them as he did Afghanistan’." He added that the US Department of Defense had promised Syria’s Kurds they would enjoy US support.
Minsk ready for dialogue on refugee problem
Makei said Minsk was ready to cooperate with the Western countries in resolving the migrant issue on the border.
"Let me stress once again: we have declared our readiness for a dialogue on all problem issues more than once. The Belarusian side has repeatedly urged the European states to refrain from discrimination towards the refugees due to route they had chosen. The EU’s defiant attitude to the situation is fraught with major humanitarian risks for the refugees in the first place," Makei concluded.
The migration crisis on the Belarusian borders with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, where migrants began to flock in since the beginning of this year, went into high gear on November 8. Several thousand people approached the Polish border on the Belarusian side and tried to cross into Poland. In an attempt to storm the border they broke a barbed wire fence. The EU countries have blamed Minsk for the intentional escalation of the crisis and called for more sanctions. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that in this situation the responsibility rested squarely on the Western countries, whose policies had forced people to flee from war. As follows from extracts from an interview to Russia’s magazine National Defense, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko expressed alarm over Poland’s measures to move tanks closer to the Belarusian border.