Camp now cleared but migrant row simmers

SOKOLKA, Poland－A makeshift migrant camp on Belarus' border with Poland has been cleared, Minsk said on Thursday, as hundreds of Iraqis who failed to make the crossing to enter the European Union returned home.

Hopes for de-escalating the crisis, which has seen thousands camping in desperate conditions on the border for weeks, had been mounting in recent days, after German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko twice by phone.

Belarus said Lukashenko had proposed a plan to Merkel to resolve the crisis under which the EU would take in 2,000 people while Minsk would send home a further 5,000.

But German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer rejected the proposal and talked of misinformation.

The EU, still reeling from the 2015 refugee crisis largely fueled by the wars in Syria and Libya, has made its reluctance to receive more migrants publicly known this time.

The EU accuses Belarus of engineering the situation at the border in retaliation for sanctions on the ex-Soviet country. Minsk and its main ally Russia have rejected the charges and criticized the EU for not taking in the migrants seeking to cross over.

Around 2,000 people, mainly Iraqi Kurds, had been stuck in freezing temperatures at a camp in the woods near the Brouzgui crossing point, hoping to pass into EU member state Poland.

On Thursday, the Belarusian border force announced that the camp had been cleared, with its occupants relocated to a reception center nearby where they were given hot food and warm clothes. The relocation came the same day as the first repatriation flight from Belarus, carrying 431 people, landed in Iraq.

Aleksei Avdonin, an analyst at the Belarusian Institute of Strategic Research, told the Belarus 1 TV channel that the West is using refugees to fulfill its own political ambitions.

The situation at the border is an opportunity for the EU to justify the possibility of new sanctions against Belarus and Russia, he said. "We see how hard the European media are trying to put the blame for it on Belarus and even Russia and are calling for sanctions on these two states."

Belarusian journalist Vadim Elfimov said: "I can advise the EU one thing: Calculate your steps in advance. When you entered Iraq, when you destroyed Libya, Afghanistan, other countries, you had to think that sooner or later these consequences would come to you."

Growing calls

There have been growing calls to set aside the differences and settle the refugee crisis so that migrants won't need to suffer more in the freezing cold.

Visiting areas near the border on the Polish side on Tuesday, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic said the situation was "extremely dangerous". "We need to find a way to de-escalate, to make sure the focus is really on stopping the suffering," she told reporters.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday: "It is just necessary to sit down at the negotiating table. ... There is only one way out of this situation－negotiations, contacts, dialogue with those countries that are now at the forefront."

Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, said at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday: "We hope that the relevant sides will, on the basis of equality and mutual respect, properly handle the issue through dialogue and consultation following the humanitarian principle."

"China opposes the wanton use or threat of unilateral sanctions in international affairs," he added.

Agencies - Xinhua