President Lukashenko orders resumption of contact with Poland

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced on Friday August 11 that he had ordered his government to resume contact with Poland, in the midst of border tensions between Moscow’s ally and its NATO member neighbor. “It is necessary to talk with the Poles. I ordered the Prime Minister to contact themhe said, quoted by the state-run Belta news agency.

Tensions between Minsk and Warsaw are currently high, amid division over the conflict in Ukraine, with Poland helping Kiev financially and militarily, while Belarus is an ally of Moscow. Poland, a member of NATO, said on Thursday it planned to deploy some 10,000 soldiers in the long term to protect, as a “deterrent”, its eastern border with Belarus.

“Contrary to our interests”

According to Alexander Lukashenko, the Polish government is seeking “escalation, to aggravate the situation, in order to show that they have correctly armed and rearmed the country“, at the approach of “(legislative) elections on October 15” Poland. The Belarusian leader judged “unlikely“to see within two months”significant changeswhich would bebeneficial for them and for us», in the position of Warsaw. “They demand a lot from us (…), but we cannot accept this, because it (would) be against our interests“, did he declare.

According to Warsaw, there area simple solutionto put an end to the tensions but that would require Lukashenko to fill in a few “basic conditions“. If the Belarusian strongman “really wants to improve relations with Poland he can do it in a very simple way (…): stop attacking our border, release the more than a thousand political prisoners and the (Belarusian-Polish journalist) Andrzej Poczobut, stop this hate campaign, this hybrid war against Polandsaid Pawel Jablonski, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister.

Read also“Gift from Stalin”, “transfer of territories”: how Putin and Lukashenko want to destabilize Poland

“We have no hostile intentions towards Belarus and never have“, he assured Polsat television. However, according to Pawel Jablonski, “Lukashenko’s words remain at odds with his deeds“. Poland recently warned of the threat of provocations from Belarus and the potential dangers posed by the arrival in the country of the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Warsaw also accuses Minsk and Moscow of orchestrating a new influx of migrants to the European Union in order to destabilize the area. Moreover, if he also said to himself “open to cooperation“, Alexander Lukashenko directly accused”the Americans (to have) bet on Polandto stir up tensions in the region, in the midst of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.