Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko wants to resolve the migration crisis on the border with Poland by the end of this year, according to an interview he offered Russian Ria Novosti news agency.
“I spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. I told her we would try to resolve the situation by the New Year because we didn’t need this. People are starting to gather in Minsk or Grodno,” said Lukashenko.
According to him, Belarus will ask refugees from the Middle East to return to their countries, because no humanitarian corridor will open. Lukashenko claims that more than a thousand Iraqis already went home.
Thousands of migrants remain mostly at the Polish border. According to Lukashenko, support to refugees at the Belarusian border has already cost 25 million dollars (€22 million).
According to the West, Lukashenko is taking revenge over the sanctions imposed on Belarus because of human rights violations. The authoritarian leader refused that he would have invited the refugees to Belarus. The most affected country, Poland, is returning migrants and trying to resolve the situation diplomatically.
