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Poland to set up buffer zone on its border with Poland, PM says

Donald Tusk announced measures to involve the police and special equipment more actively to help the country’s border service

MOSCOW, May 29. /TASS/. The Polish authorities may establish a 200-meter-wide buffer zone on the border with Belarus, with a decision potentially coming early next month, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at a meeting with border guards and the military in the border zone.

"Today, (on May 29 - TASS) your fellow servicemen advised us to re-establish a 200-meter-wide buffer zone on the border with Belarus, where necessary, as soon as possible," the Polish premier said at a news conference broadcast by TVP Info. "Together with the national defense minister, the interior minister and the entire Cabinet we will make this decision at the beginning of next week," he announced.

Also, Tusk announced measures to involve the police and special equipment more actively to help the country’s border service. Poland’s defense chief Wladislaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, who attended the meeting, reported the deployment of more troops to the border with Belarus.

On Tuesday, Tusk revealed that a reinforcement had been sent to the Polish border with Belarus to respond to the growing number of attacks by illegal migrants. On May 28, a Polish soldier was stabbed while trying to stop a migrant from illegally crossing the border. In all, Poland’s Border Guard Service has caught over 13,000 people attempting to illegally cross from Belarus this year.