In a bid to keep Belarus from continued migration flow to the EU, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin inviting Moscow to engage in solving the migration crisis, British news portal The Guardian reports.
During a telephone conversation, this week Merkel told Putin that the «use of migrants by the Belarusian regime was inhuman and unacceptable and asked [Putin] to influence the regime in Minsk», told the chancellor’s spokesperson, Steffen Seibert.
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The call came just hours after Poland’s prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki accused Putin of «masterminding» the crisis on Belarus’s border with the EU. The escalating rhetoric, including claims from Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, that Russia could join a potential conflict at the border, has underlined the role that regional alliances are playing in the standoff and ensuing humanitarian crisis.
Meanwhile, Russia has denied any involvement and blamed the EU for the crisis. The Kremlin readout of the phone call with Merkel said Putin «proposed to establish a discussion of the [current] problems in direct contacts between representatives of the EU member states and Minsk». The Kremlin did not mention Merkel’s request that Putin intervene or promise any action from Russia to end the crisis, The Guardian reports.
Berlin urges Moscow to help end migration via Belarus
