"For the first time in 30 years, we see the safety and integrity of our borders being so brutally attacked and tested," Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said at a special session of the Sejm devoted to the migrant crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border. He added the country was dealing with a "staged spectacle". The head of the government also stressed that migrants were being used "as human shields to destablise the situation in Poland, Lithuania and the whole EU".
Morawiecki also said that Poland should manifest its strenght in efficient action at its eastern border.
He underscored that the safety of Poland's eastern border was being violated "in a very brutal way".
The prime minister added that Poland was dealing not only with direct use of violence, but also with a "staged spectacle meant to violate Polish borders, causing chaos in Poland and the EU".
He also said that similar scenario had unfolded in 2015 and 2016, only from a different direction. "Today, we face this under different circumstances. Under these circumstances we've managed to convince our EU and NATO partners, that defending Poland's eastern border is defending the eastern border of the European Union, and NATO eastern flank".
Morawiecki stressed that migrants were being used "as human shields to destablise the situation in Poland, Lithuania, Baltic states and the whole EU". "They are migrants, not refugees. It's important to underscore, as some people keep on confusing these terms," he added.
Spokesman for the European Council chief, Barend Leyts, informed in a tweet on Tuesday that Charles Michel would meet with PM Morawiecki on Wednesday in Warsaw, to discuss the migrant crisis.
Belarus summons Polish envoy
Belarus's defence ministry summoned Poland's defence attache on Tuesday regarding what it said were unfounded accusations about the involvement of Belarusian military personnel in the migration crisis on their border, it said on social media. Separately, Belarus foreign minister Vladimir Makei was quoted as saying by Belarusian state news agency Belta that he would discuss the crisis with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Wednesday.
Hundreds of migrants huddled round campfires on Tuesday near the Belarus-Poland border, where razor wire fences and Polish border guards blocked their entry into the European Union. The EU vowed more sanctions on Belarus, accusing President Alexander Lukashenko of using "gangster-style" tactics in the months-long border standoff in which at least seven migrants have died. Poland and other EU member states accuse Belarus of encouraging the migrants - from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa - to illegally cross the border into the EU in revenge for sanctions slapped on Minsk over human rights abuses.
Nobel Prize winners write to EU
In an open letter addressed to the European Council and European Parliament, four former winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature on Monday called for end to 'humanitarian crisis' on the Poland-Belarus border.
"As citizens and residents of the European Union we appeal to you as Europe’s democratically elected representatives – let us not avert our gaze from this tragedy," the Nobel laureates said in the letter, which was posted to social media.
"We are appealing for the fastest and most effective solution to this humanitarian crisis, for observation of the rules of the Geneva Convention, and above all for an asylum procedure to be initiated for all those asking for it, and who are being detained in this part of the eastern border of the European Union," the letter added.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Reuters, PAP