US President Joe Biden on Friday expressed “grave concern” over the crisis on the Belarus-Poland border, shortly after a similar statement by his vice-president, Kamala Harris.
“We have expressed our concern in Russia (…) and in Belarus,” he told reporters before leaving to spend the weekend at the presidential residence in Camp David.
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko has been accused by Westerners of orchestrating a recent influx of migrants to the border with Poland, a member of the European Union, in retaliation for sanctions imposed by Brussels on Minsk over the White House. opposition after last year’s presidential election.
So far, he has been counting on the support of his key ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Earlier, US Vice President Kamala Harris, on an official visit to Paris, said that Minsk was “involved in a very worrying activity”.
Washington regularly criticizes the “Lukashenko regime” and the United States is among the states that impose sanctions on a number of individuals and legal entities in Belarus.
In late July, Joe Biden welcomed self-exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tsihanufskaya to the White House.
The EU on Friday welcomed “progress” in preventing more migrants from arriving, especially after Turkey announced it would no longer allow Iraqis, Syrians and Yemenis to fly to Belarus from its airports.
The Iraqi government, for its part, has said it will register migrants from the country who have been stranded on Belarus’ border with Poland and agree to return “voluntarily.”
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