MINSK, December 13. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said that the European Union is reluctant to conduct negotiations with Minsk on the migration crisis issue.
"There are no contacts at all. Possibly, they are interested, but they do not wish to do anything to this end. They need a pretext for exerting pressure on Belarus," Lukashenko told the Turkish television broadcaster TRT in an interview. The Belarusian news agency BelTA has quoted extracts from the interview on Monday.
"This explains why they do not participate in such talks," Lukashenko said.
He stressed that currently there were no direct negotiations with Germany, either.
"We have no contacts with Germany now. Last time we had them was about a month ago, when Merkel (the then acting German chancellor Angela Merkel - TASS) made a phone call to me and we discussed the refugee situation," he said.
Lukashenko recalled that earlier the EU had appointed special commissioners for talks with Minsk on resolving the problem.
"Apparently they are too busy right now. The EU has many problems, so as far as we understand its attention is required elsewhere," he said.
The Belarusian president dismissed the EU’s accusations the Belarusian authorities had intentionally created the crisis.
"Should any such evidence surface, I will present apologies in public," he said.
Lukashenko pointed out that the refugees were leaving Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other states, because the United States and its European and other satellites had intruded into the territories of all these countries.
"These people have lost their homes, they have no chance to earn a living and support their children. But what is most terrible of all, they have no vision of the future. In particular, this concerns their children. They have turned into refugees and, using different routes, started moving there where they had been invited - the European Union," Lukashenko said. He emphasized that the refugees had arrived in Belarus on absolutely legal grounds as tourists and that the European Union had terminated compliance with its obligations under the previously concluded agreement on readmission.