President Duda: Poland won't accept any decisions taken without us

Poland's President Andrzej Duda said on Wednesday during his visit to Montenegro that the Belarusian regime led by Alexander Lukashenko was treating migrants instrumentally by pushing them towards the Polish border.

He stressed that Poland has a duty to protect EU borders from illegal migration. "Until now, no big group of migrants have crossed the border - especially not by using force as it’s happening in the past days when there have been riots on the border - and I am extremely grateful for that to our forces, border guard, police, and also the soldiers," he said.

"They are carrying out their responsibilities for our state and also the European Union," Duda added.

Polish president also said it was not only an attack on the Polish-Belarusian border. "It has all started with the attack on the Lithuania-Belarus border, that was the beginning, then the Belarus-Latvia border was attacked. So it is simply an attack on the borders of the European Union, at the moment it’s concentrated at the part of the EU border that is under our, Polish, protection," he said.

"But, we are simply carrying out our European responsibility and I hope that the whole European Union, all member countries, European institutions, will have solidarity with Poland and our actions. Because, I repeat one more time, we are carrying out our responsibilities stemming from our membership in the EU. We take our membership seriously, as we treat seriously all responsibilities that we undertook, and we are counting on the fact that we will be taken seriously," the president

Andrzej Duda was asked at the conference about his discussion with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and if it was a reaction to Angela Merkel's conversation with Alexander Lukashenko.

He informed that he had told Steinmeier that Poland would not accept any decisions taken without its participation. "If there are to be any decisions binding for Poland (...), those decision will be made only by us," Duda reassured.

"We are a sovereign state which has the right to decide for itself and we shall exercise this right in an absolute manner," he added.

Poland's president also said his conversation with Steinemier also pertained to recent phone calls Angela Merkel had.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Belarus' leader Alexander Lukashenko held another phone call on Wednesday, their second of the week, amid a migration crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland, Belarus' BelTA state news agency reported.

On Monday, the two leaders discussed humanitarian aid for refugees and migrants stranded at the EU-Belarus border in a rare phone call after a decision by the European Union to step up sanctions against Belarus.