Lukashenko promised Merkel to expel 5 thousand migrants in exchange for a humanitarian corridor for 2 thousand
A plane carrying 374 migrants from the Middle East took off for Baghdad today from Minsk National Airport. The evacuation flight was organized by the Iraqi Embassy in Moscow.
The night before, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko had a second telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“Here are the first results of Lukashenko’s conversations with the outgoing German Chancellor. It seems that migrants are starting to be sent home. That is why the EU did not impose sanctions against Minsk airport. Who is the main peacemaker here? Putin, of course,” liberal Russian political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky wrote on his Telegram channel.
In his conclusions, he apparently relied on the words of Estonian Foreign Minister Eva-Maria Liimets, who said that Lukashenko put forward the condition for ending the migration crisis at the EU borders to be recognized by him as president and the lifting of sanctions against Belarus.
The Estonian diplomat’s statement was denied by Lukashenko’s press secretary Natalya Eismont. She said such trading was “beneath the dignity of the president” and advised Liimets to request a transcript of the conversation between the Belarusian and German leaders before commenting.
“The mechanism that the president proposed was the following. The EU is creating a humanitarian corridor for 2 thousand refugees who are in the camp. We undertake to assist as much as possible, and if they wish, the remaining 5 thousand can return to their homeland. Angela Merkel, by agreement, will negotiate with the EU on organizing a humanitarian corridor to Germany. Today we are fulfilling our obligations. The EU has not yet fulfilled a single commitment. The EU has not even started negotiations at the expert level,” Eismont said.
She made it clear that the first plane from Minsk to Iraq with migrants could also be the last.
“The rest continue to insist on providing a humanitarian corridor to Western Europe. First of all, to Germany. So far they categorically refuse to fly away, but we will work on it,” Eismont said.
She was outraged by publications in European media that interpret recent clashes between migrants and Polish border guards “as a victory not only over Belarus, but also over Russia.” The press secretary said that the president, at a meeting with migration services, instructed them to facilitate the return to their homeland as much as possible and “fulfill their other wishes.”
“There is one condition. We will not force anyone out to Syria or other countries,” Eismont concluded.
This means that if the EU refuses to open a humanitarian corridor to Germany for migrants currently concentrated on the Polish border, they will be joined by 5 thousand people who live in Minsk and other large cities of Belarus.
After the recent massacre with the Poles, migrants moved from the tent camp to a logistics center in the Grodno region. The EU allocated money for the renovation through public organizations. In this huge hangar, people sleep on the floor, but they are warm. If desired, they can move again to the border - nearby.
The head of the Belarusian Union of Journalists, Andrei Krivosheev, does not believe that the migration crisis has been completely overcome.
“It’s not a fact, because people who want to get into the EU through Minsk are still there. I can judge by the number of people who are now in Minsk, they are not getting smaller. They will try new ways, new routes. The more humanitarian organizations, entire cities and communities in the EU connect, the more likely it is that a humanitarian corridor will open: by air or by land,” Krivosheev said on the Soloviev LIVE YouTube channel.
Belarusian political scientist Alexander Shpakovsky admitted on his telegram channel that there is a scenario in which refugees from Afghanistan will also flock to the Polish border.
“My basic hypothesis was that with a significant increase in the migration flow from the Afghan direction (including overland through Russia), the problem will develop into a serious regional threat with the gradual leveling of the well-established Western idea about the central role of Belarus in creating the migration crisis on the border,” – wrote Shpakovsky.
He draws an analogy between the migration crisis and the war in Donbass. By offering Minsk as a platform for negotiations in 2014, Lukashenko achieved the unfreezing of Belarus’ relations with the EU. The same thing can happen now. The influx of migrants will force Europe to engage in “constructive negotiations.”
Merkel's frequent calls to Lukashenko and the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borel, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, Vladimir Makei, pleasantly surprised Shpakovsky. He believes that now the crisis will be resolved faster, and the Afghans will not have to be pulled in.
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