German Acting Chancellor Angela Merkel and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko spoke by phone yesterday for the second time this week. “Having discussed the refugee problem in detail, the parties came to a certain understanding of how to act and to move on in solving the existing issues,” the Belarusian president’s office said in a statement, reported BelTa. “The Belarusian president and Germany’s acting chancellor agreed that the problem will be addressed at the level of Belarus and the EU, and that the two sides will designate officials who will immediately enter into negotiations in order to resolve the existing problems. The desire of refugees to get to Germany will be addressed in the same context.”
Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said that the chancellor stressed during the call the need for humanitarian aid and repatriation facilities to be organized by the UN and EU to help the affected people.
Seibert stressed that, while Germany does not recognize Lukashenko as the legitimately elected president of Belarus, Berlin sees talks with him as important in order to render humanitarian assistance to migrants. “In order to improve this alarming humanitarian situation for thousands of people, it makes sense to speak with those in Minsk who have the possibility to change the situation even if we are talking about the ruler whose legitimacy is not recognized by Germany and other European countries,” Seibert said, reported TASS. “That is why, the chancellor had a phone call with Lukashenko: in order to find humanitarian ways to ensure, for example, access for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees,” he stressed, noting that migrants were already receiving initial aid at the site. “She held this conversation in close coordination with the European Commission and after getting information from major partners in the region,” the spokesman went on to say.
