Aliaksandr Lukashenka spoke about the migration crisis at a meeting with the Academy of Sciences. According to him, migrants continue to come on foot.
«It seems like the situation with refugees is no longer exist, but it only seems to you. They continue to come. They go directly there. And what I warned the West about: they used to fly on airplanes, now they walk. Not crowds, but getting little by little here. And every day. Last week, but this is according to their data, they say that up to 200 people just in a week got to the other side – Poland, Lithuania and Latvia – mainly to Poland,» he said.
It should be noted that earlier migrants flew to Belarus. In December, about 4,000 Iraqi citizens were returned to their homeland from Minsk.
Lukashenka said that it is necessary to solve the problem in places that, according to him, were bombed by the West. If it is not solved, then the flows will continue.
«And they go not only through Belarus, and not only through those channels that you know, there is the Mediterranean Sea, they also go north through Russia, to Finland and there, and so on. They also go through Ukraine, but they chose Belarus to show in the media,» he said.
Lukashenka said that such and other provocations will continue. He mentioned the shelling of border signs.
«It all starts with these little things, gradually the escalation is coming. They stopped all cooperation with us. They always asked on their knees: let’s conclude a readmission agreement. That is, if they ran there from us, we must take them away. Well, we thought for a long time, but we had to agree with Russia and others, that if they came to us from Russia, we took from Poland, you will take them to you. We settled down and agreed. They promised to build housing for this, for these people, refugees, camps. Everyone abandoned, stopped funding, stopped all work on border issues. Well, please,» Lukashenka said.
It should be noted that the readmission agreement between Belarus and the European Union was concluded as a package together with an agreement on visa facilitation. The EU has stopped funding state-owned projects in Belarus in response to the harsh crackdown on protests after the presidential election. In the spring of last year, Belarusian sanctions initiated the suspension of the readmission agreement. It should be noted that the European Union did not do this with the agreement on simplifying the visa regime. But while Belarusians can not fully enjoy its fruits, as the EU continues to have restrictions on entry associated with the pandemic.
Source: Reform.by
