Poland’s Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau on Monday hosted Çavuşoğlu for talks in Warsaw to discuss joint action as many migrant routes to Europe lead though that country, including air routes, with migrants encouraged by Minsk often changing planes in Istanbul, officials said.
“Minister Çavuşoğlu offered wide-ranging help whereby our intelligence agencies will work together, sharing information, cooperating to identify places which pose danger and the channels used for the transfer of migrants,” Poland’s Rau said after the meeting.
Çavuşoğlu was quoted as saying that Turkey had experience in “combating human traffickers,” adding that in recent weeks his country "has begun working with Lithuania in this matter.”
According to the government in Ankara, some 600 Iraqis have flown to Minsk via Turkish airlines this year, only half of whom have returned to the Middle East and the whereabouts of the rest are unknown, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
Amid a migrant crisis in 2016, the European Union signed an agreement with Turkey to counteract illegal migration. Since then, Brussels has paid Ankara EUR 6 billion for its assistance, although Turkey has repeatedly threatened to cancel the deal, according to Polish news agencies.
The two foreign ministers also discussed economic ties, with Rau telling reporters afterwards that Turkey was Poland's leading economic partner in the Middle East.
Bilateral trade totalled EUR 6 billion last year and "hopefully will reach EUR 8 billion in a short space of time,” the Polish foreign minister said, as quoted by the state PAP news agency.
He added that Warsaw and Ankara were working together on security, counter-terrorism, trade, migration and tourism, PAP reported.
The two top diplomats also signed a deal on cooperation between the diplomacy academies at their respective ministries, to improve how diplomats are educated in Poland and Turkey, the Polish foreign ministry said in a statement.
Poland and fellow EU members Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have accused Belarus' strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko of organising a wave of illegal migrants seeking to enter the bloc as part of what officials have called a "hybrid war."
The EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, visited Poland last week, agreeing with Warsaw’s view that “firm steps” were needed against Belarus.
Also last week, Polish lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to extend a state of emergency in parts of two regions along the country's eastern border with Belarus by two months amid a growing migrant surge.
The state of emergency gives authorities broader powers to monitor and control the movement of people on the Polish-Belarusian border, which is also the eastern border of the European Union.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, gov.pl