Belarus working to return migrants

MOSCOW－Belarus is working on repatriating the several thousand migrants, mostly from the Middle East, that have massed on the country's border with Poland, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday.

"Active work is underway in this area, to convince people－please, return home. But nobody wants to go back," Lukashenko was quoted as saying by state news agency Belta.

He also said Belarus could ferry the migrants via its state-run airline Belavia to Germany if Poland does not provide a "humanitarian corridor".

He added that the former Soviet country does not want the migrant crisis to escalate into a "conflict", calling it "completely detrimental for us".

Belarus' Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Western allegations of Minsk engineering the migrant crisis on its borders with the European Union were "absurd". Russian news agency RIA cited the ministry as saying that Belarus had tightened border controls and Belavia has carried no illegal migrants.

During a telephone call on Sunday, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei told Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, that his country would try to reduce the migrant flows from Asia, Africa and the Middle East to the EU, Belta reported.

Both sides confirmed their intention to end the migration crisis at an early date, the report added.

Hundreds of migrants have been trying to cross from Belarus into EU member Poland for months, but tensions soared last week as coordinated efforts to cross were rebuffed by Polish border guards.

The EU has been blaming Belarus for the refugee crisis and issued sanctions against Minsk, while according to Lukashenko, the sanctions have dented his country's capability to tackle the crisis.

In Brussels, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned on Monday as he arrived for a meeting with EU colleagues that Belarus would face tougher sanctions over the migrant crisis on the Polish border.

With Lukashenko's apparent attempt to defuse the crisis, it would appear that he does not want a conflict, Agence France-Presse commented, Maas warned that Brussels was in no mood to back down.

"Lukashenko demands that we remove all sanctions. We will give our answer today. We will further tighten sanctions," he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday denied claims Moscow is helping to orchestrate the border crisis.

Blaming Western policies in the Middle East for the crisis, Putin hit back at claims from Poland and others that Russia is working with Belarus to pressure the EU frontier.

"I want everyone to know. We have nothing to do with it," he told state television.

Agencies - Xinhua