July 3, Pozirk. Alaksandr Łukašenka reiterated yesterday that he will not help the European Union combat illegal migration.
“I do not intend to give orders to border guards, military and others to defend the European Union at the border between Belarus and Poland,” he said in his Independence Day address, as quoted by state media outlets.
He linked his refusal to cooperate on migration to sanctions that the EU had imposed on Belarus over allegations of human rights abuses, the forced landing of a Ryanair plane and Minsk’s complicity in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“You tied a noose around our neck, and yet you are forcing us to defend you from these poor people,” he said.
“Before the introduction of sanctions we worked closely with the West and went as far as to conclude a readmission treaty. Later they disavowed it. We will not catch them [migrants]. Our business is to secure our people,” he said.
It was actually Minsk that terminated the readmission treaty, not the EU.
