The condemnation came as hundreds if not thousands of migrants gathered on the Polish-Belarusian border in an apparent bid to force their way into Poland and the European Union, according to the Polish state news agency.
"We are concerned about the recent escalation on the Polish-Belarusian border,” NATO said in a statement on Monday, as quoted by the Polish news agency.
“We urge Belarus to respect international law. We are witnessing a wave of migrants trying to get to the territory of the allies via Belarus," the statement said, according to PAP.
"NATO continues to closely monitor the situation that is putting pressure on our allies, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland," it added.
The Western military alliance was quoted as saying that "the use of migrants by the Lukashenko regime as a hybrid tactic is unacceptable."
It also said that NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was in close contact with the governments of the allied countries, PAP reported.
Polish border guards, police and soldiers on Monday thwarted several attempts by migrants to force their way into the country via Belarus, government officials said, as the border crisis escalated.
The European Union has accused Belarus of encouraging thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa to cross into EU countries via Belarus, as a form of hybrid warfare in revenge for Western sanctions on Minsk over human rights abuses, the Reuters news agency reported.
Poland and the Baltic states have accused Belarus's 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."
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Source: PAP, Reuters