Lukashenko comments on measures to fight illegal migration on border
Belarus will continue dealing with the main challenges on the border but will do it as it sees fit, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at a meeting to discuss response to sanctions on 6 July, BelTA has learned.
The head of state noted that Belarus has always honored its obligations in the field of nuclear non-proliferation, combating illegal migration, smuggling, and international organized crime. "Today we are dealing with these issues, but to the extent we find necessary, beneficial and financially possible," Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
"You see, our neighbors have started whining (primarily Lithuania and others there) about Belarus, saying that we are facilitating migration to Lithuania. Yesterday or the day before yesterday they announced that they would speed up the registration of those coming from Belarus [the time spent on processing of asylum applications]. Who do you send this signal to? If you declare to the whole world that you will register those who make their routes through Belarus even faster, they will keep going. You are opening the door for these migrants even wider," the Belarusian leader noted.
The president said that Belarus will continue dealing with the main challenges on the border. "But if someone thinks that we will close the border with Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine and become a filtration camp for fugitives from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, they are mistaken at least. We will not hold anyone. We are not their final destination after all. They are headed to the enlightened, warm, cozy Europe,” the head of state said. “On the one hand, Europe invited them (there are not enough workers). On the other, they have destroyed these countries. They effectively ruined Afghanistan and withdrew their troops. You can see what is happening there: now the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union are barely holding back this flow of refugees."
"They reproach the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and our government for refusing to comply with the readmission treaty. They want to turn Belarus into a filtration camp: people are fleeing westwards because of grief, misery and war, and they want us to take them and hold them in ‘filtration camps' here. This will not happen since you have chosen this policy with regard to Belarus and Russia. People flee the war and run to where they have been invited. The European Union pays allowances for those who arrive there," the president added.
