Poland will make its decision “in the coming days” and “all scenarios are on the table,” Łukasz Jasina, the spokesman for the Polish foreign ministry, told state news agency PAP.
Belarus retaliates for border crossing closure
The Belarusian foreign ministry on Friday notified the Polish chargé d’affaires in Minsk about its response to the closure of the Bobrowniki border crossing by Poland, the PAP news agency reported.
The Belarusian authorities said Polish trucks would be able to enter and leave Belarus “through Polish-Belarusian crossings only,” meaning they would not be able to use Belarus’ crossings with Lithuania and Latvia, according to officials.
In addition, the Polish Border Guard’s liaison officer is to leave Belarus.
Moreover, the number of staff at the Polish Consulate General in Grodno, western Belarus, "should be made equal to the number of staff at the Belarusian Consulate General in Białystok," northeastern Poland, the Belarusian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Poland to respond ‘in the next few days’
Jasina told PAP: “Our response will be calm and preceded by careful consideration.”
He added: “We are analysing the situation and will keep the public informed about further decisions. When it comes to this type of response, every scenario is on the table. We have to weigh all the pros and cons, so we’ll make the decision calmly in the immediate future. It’s a matter of the next few days.”
The foreign ministry in Minsk said in its statement that the Belarusian government had taken its steps “in response” to measures introduced by Poland and “reserves the right to take more serious steps in case of destructive actions by Poland," the PAP news agency reported.
'In the interest of national security'
Last week, Poland announced that, “in the interest of national security,” it was suspending traffic at the Polish-Belarusian border crossing in Bobrowniki from February 10 until further notice.
The move was made after a court in Grodno sentenced Polish-Belarusian journalist and activist Andrzej Poczobut to eight years in “a maximum security penal colony” in what was widely seen as a politically motivated case.
Bobrowniki had recently been the only road border crossing with Belarus in Poland’s northeastern Podlaskie province.
The largest road border crossing, in Kuźnica, was closed in November 2021 until further notice due to a migrant crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border.
At the moment, two Polish-Belarusian border crossings are active, the Terespol-Brest crossing for passenger traffic and Kukuryki-Kozlovishche for freight traffic, the PAP news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, dziennik.pl