President of Belarus Lukashenko linked the migration crisis with Western sanctions them with a noose around their necks.
According to Lukashenko, the Europeans tore up the readmission agreement, according to which, if migrants entered the EU from Belarus, the republican authorities took them away and placed them in special migration camps. Europe has stopped cooperating with Minsk on border issues, Lukashenko said.
“I said bluntly:“ Well, God is with you, your problems. But I will not defend you any more as I did last year, ”he added.
Lukashenka claims that Europe now does not want to discuss these issues.
“ When we we talked about the origins with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, I told him that it all started from here. Sanctions. Listen, they threw a noose around your neck, clamp it and say: “Protect me!”. I honestly told them about this at the very beginning: “Guys, you went to aggravate relations, you accuse us of the plane and so on, although not a single fact is on the table,” Lukashenka said.
Migration crisis on the border of Belarus and the EU began after Lukashenko in May threatened to loosen control over flows of migrants and drug trafficking. The statement came against the backdrop of yet another aggravation of relations with the West, which began after a Ryanair plane was urgently landed in Minsk to detain opposition blogger Roman Protasevich.