WASHINGTON, November 30. /TASS/. The United States does not want to see "aggressive or destabilizing" actions amid "a very tense situation" on the Belarusian border, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs John Kirby told a briefing on Monday when commenting on Minsk’s plans to hold joint exercise with Russia on providing security of the republic’s borders.
Meanwhile, Washington acknowledges the right of countries to exercise as they wish, according to Kirby. "Nations are free to exercise with their partners as they wish," he said.
"What we continue to say and would add is that we don't want to see actions that are unnecessarily aggressive or destabilizing to what is already a very tense situation," Assistant to the Secretary of Defense noted.
Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin told reporters earlier that Minsk and Moscow were planning to hold a set of measures to shield the republic’s southern borders. Belarus is comprehensively training its troops jointly with Russia to adequately counter emerging new threats and fend off aggression against the Union State, the Belarusian defense chief said, adding that the two countries would continue improving their integrated regional air defense system in the future.
The migrant crisis on the Belarusian border with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland where Middle Eastern migrants have been amassing since the beginning of the year, quickly unraveled on November 8. Several thousand refugees approached the Polish border from Belarus and refused to leave the area. EU countries have accused Minsk of intentionally escalating the crisis and have called for sanctions. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko stated that Western countries themselves were to blame for this quagmire since these people were fleeing war in their homelands due to the West’s belligerent policies that have wreaked havoc in that part of the world.