Berlin successfully negotiated with Iraq to cancel flights to Belarus in an effort to curb the number of migrants attempting to cross in the EU, German Foreign Office spokeswoman Andrea Sasse said on Friday
BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th October, 2021) Berlin successfully negotiated with Iraq to cancel flights to Belarus in an effort to curb the number of migrants attempting to cross in the EU, German Foreign Office spokeswoman Andrea Sasse said on Friday.
"We negotiated with Iraq to cancel the flights, these negotiations were successful," Sasse told reporters at a briefing in Berlin.
She added that Jordan also claimed to have canceled a number of charter flights to Belarus.
Lithuania, Latvia and Poland have reported a growing number of refugees arriving from Belarus in recent months, alleging that the illegal migration flow has been sustained by the Belarusian government to get back at the EU for sanctions. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko rejected the allegation, but acknowledged that sanctions have deprived his country of the resources needed to curb EU-bound illegal migrants.
In October, the German Federal police caught over 4,100 illegal migrants coming from Belarus on the German-Polish border. Most of them are Syrians and Iraqis, and more recently Yemenis, Iranians, Pakistanis, Egyptians and Jordanians. Germany fails to bolster security on its borders as any limits would breach the EU's freedom of movement rules.
