Mariusz Kamiński announced the move on Twitter on Thursday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The interior minister said in a tweet: “Due to the important interest of state security, I decided to suspend until further notice from 1200 on Feb. 10 this year traffic at the Polish-Belarusian border crossing in Bobrowniki.”
Bobrowniki, situated over 200 km northeast of the Polish capital Warsaw, is one of the main crossing points between Poland and Belarus, the Reuters news agency reported.
Kamiński also announced that as a result of the jailing of the journalist, Andrzej Poczobut, he would apply for more people connected with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to be added to sanctions lists, according to Reuters.
Poczobut, a Polish-Belarusian journalist and an activist for the Polish minority in Belarus, was on Thursday sentenced by the Grodno Circuit Court to 8 years' imprisonment for "fomenting hatred" and "acting to the detriment of Belarus," news outlets reported.
Poczobut's arrest and sentence have met with widespread condemnation. Łukasz Jasina, spokesperson for the Polish foreign ministry, said on Thursday: "We condemn the unjust verdict issued by the court of an authoritarian state."
Following the interior minister’s decision on Thursday, the Polish charge d’affaires in Minsk was summoned to the Belarusian foreign ministry, the Polish foreign ministry said.
Poland has become a key refuge for opponents of the Lukashenko regime, as well as one of the main allies of Ukraine, since Belarusian ally Russia invaded the country in February 2022, the Reuters news agency reported.
In 2021, Poland and the European Union said Belarus had deliberately created a migrant crisis on its frontiers, and Poland has also condemned the vandalism of Polish graves in Belarus, according to news outlets.
Thousands of people of Polish origin live in Belarus, whose western part was Polish territory before the rearrangement of borders after World War II, Reuters noted.
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Source: PAP, Reuters, Politico