Belarus Summons Poland's Envoy In Tit-For-Tat Diplomatic Move

On Thursday, Belarus summoned Poland's Charge d'Affaires to Minsk to protest against Poland's statement on the alleged entry of unidentified "armed men in uniform" from Belarus.

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Poland's accusations have no factual confirmation, and Warsaw uses "exclusively megaphone diplomacy, dogmatic statements for the media" to aggravate the situation at the border, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said, adding that Poland wants to "raise the degree of tension" in order to receive additional funding for the construction of a separation wall on the border with Belarus.

Meanwhile, however, Belarus denied the allegations of any provocations of border incidents, noting that the country does not question Poland's right and ability to defend its borders, and that any escalation in the region is completely unprofitable for the Belarusian side.

According to the Belarusian authorities, this country is ready to resolve any issues with mutual respect and through dialogue. In recent months, these neighbors have been caught in a spat amid a vast flow of illegal migrants from the Middle East and Africa seeking to enter Poland and Latvia and Lithuania from Belarus.

On Wednesday, Poland accused Belarus of staging an armed cross-border intrusion, saying that it had summoned the Belarusian Charge d'Affaires to protest over what it said was "a deliberate escalation" of the migrant crisis at the border. The regional security situation, however, has become even more complicated precisely due to the Polish actions.

On Sep. 2, for example, Poland imposed a state of emergency in areas close to the Belarusian border to prevent the entry of Middle Eastern migrants. On Oct. 25, the Polish authorities announced that they would send 2,500 additional soldiers to the border with Belarus, where the number of its soldiers is expected to increase to 10,000 troops.

“People are being treated like weapons,” Doctors Without Borders (MSF) member Crystal van Leeuwen said after returning from a secure militarised zone on the Polish side. “It’s hard to believe this kind of crisis is unfolding in the EU,” he added, as reported by The Guardian.