Poland, Turkey to counter Belarus’ ‘hybrid attack’ with use of migrants

Warsaw, Nov 11 (Sputnik) Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau and his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, have held a phone conversation in which they agreed to counter what they described as a “hybrid attack” by Belarus with the use of migrants, the Polish Foreign Ministry said.

Some 2,000 migrants have been stranded at the Belarusian border with Poland since Monday. As part of measures to prevent them from crossing over, the Polish authorities have deployed security forces to the border, even more escalating the tensions.
“FM @MevlutCavusoglu has called FM @RauZbigniew to coordinate efforts to stop weaponisation of the migration. Poland and Turkey, @NATO allies, will work together to counter the use of illegal migrants by [Belarusian President Alexander] Lukashenko’s regime as a hybrid attack against the neighbours,” the Polish Foreign Ministry wrote on its Twitter page on late Wednesday.
In recent months, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania have reported an increase in the number of people trying to cross the border from Belarus illegally, accusing Minsk of using migrants as a “hybrid weapon” and orchestrating a crisis to get back at Brussels for sanctions against Lukashenko. The Belarusian leader has rejected the accusations, saying his cash-strapped country can no longer afford tight border controls.