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Minsk won’t escalate tensions with Warsaw to create corridor for refugees, Lukashenko says

The Belarusian president noted that the Belarusian leadership would not politicize the problems of refugees

MINSK, November 26. /TASS/. Belarus won’t escalate tensions in its relations with Poland in order to create a humanitarian corridor for refugees’ passage to Germany, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said addressing the refugees near the logistics center next to the Bruzgi checkpoint on the Belarusian-Polish border on Friday.

"What can we do for you? Yet you do understand that we cannot start a war to clear a corridor for you through Poland to Germany," Lukashenko noted addressing the migrants.

"You see how they reacted to you getting closer to them. They poured toxic chemicals on you, [tossed] stun grenades, [used] tear gas. <...> Had you gone further to the border, they would have opened fire," the Belarusian president said. "People on that side [of the border] went mad," he said.

At the same time, the president assured that the Belarusian authorities were not going to prevent migrants from going to the Western states. "If you want to go to the Western [countries], we would not strangle, grab or beat you. It is your choice. If you manage to go through then do it," Lukashenko went on to say. The head of state noted that the Belarusian leadership would not politicize the problems of refugees. "By no means will we game and make a policy on your destinies," Lukashenko insisted.

The migrant crisis on the border of Belarus with Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, where migrants have rushed since the beginning of the year, sharply escalated on November 8. Several thousand people came from the Belarusian side to the Polish border and did not leave the border zone. Some of them tried to enter Poland by breaking the barbed wire fence.

Some of the refugees were taken from Belarus to Iraq by an Iraqi Airways plane. Two such flights were carried out at the early hours of Friday, and one more was on November 18. According to Minsk airport, Iraqi Airways scheduled two more repatriation flights for November 26-27.

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Belarus Alexander Lukashenko Poland

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