Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani in a meeting with Belarusian Defense Minister Lieutenant General Viktor Khrenin stated that the two countries have common views on important regional and global issues.

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The fence will be five and a half meters high, measure 186 kilometers and cost €350 million to build, the Polish Border Guard agency has announced. Poland and Belarus share a 418 km border.

A border guard spokeswoman, Captain Krystyna Jakimik-Jarosz, declined to specify the location of the construction sites, arguing that “the Belarusian services are just waiting for this to send groups of migrants there, so for security reasons we don’t indicate the precise locations.”

The new fence will be equipped with cameras and motion detectors, among other things, to help border guards prevent smuggling, Jakimik-Jarosz said.

“The temporary fence (made of barbed wire) has already helped us a lot because it gave us time to prepare while a group of migrants was about to attack, to open a passage, time to mobilize enough means and personnel to prevent it,” she explained.

The construction is expected to be completed in June.

The project has raised concerns among human rights and environmental activists. The former fear that migrants fleeing conflict situations will not be able to apply for asylum, and the latter fear the adverse effects on the wildlife of the forest area on the border.

“We will do everything to ensure that the damage to the environment and animals is reduced as much as possible,” Jakimik-Jarosz said.

The European Union has accused Belarus of facilitating illegal immigration into the bloc in retaliation of sanctions imposed against the regime over the August 2020 presidential election, deemed fraudulent by the West, subsequent crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protests and the hijacking of a commercial plane to arrest a prominent opposition journalist.

Minsk rejects the accusation.

Thousands of migrants, mostly from the Middle East, including Iraqi Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon, but also from Afghanistan, tried to cross the Polish border into the EU last year. Some of them managed to cross and most of them continued their journey to Western Europe.

The EU’s border agency, Frontex detected nearly 8,000 illegal entries into member states bordering Belarus — Poland, Lithuania, Latvia — in 2021, an increase of 1,069% on the previous year.

Warsaw and Minsk have both been harshly criticized for their treatment of migrants and accused of carrying out illegal pushbacks, leaving large groups of migrants stuck at the border in perilous conditions with little access to food or equipment to ward off freezing temperatures. About a dozen migrants have now died at the border.

Poland imposed a state of emergency at its border, restricting access to the area to journalists and NGOs, weakening oversight of the unfolding crisis.

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Polish Border Guard spokeswoman Anna Michalska said on Friday that a group of 500 people had tried to enter the European Union member state on Thursday evening, aided by Belarusian authorities who had earlier cleared the main camps at the border.

“[The Belarusians] were bringing more migrants to the place where there was a forced attempt to cross,” Michalska said.

“At the start, there were 100 people, but then the Belarusian side brought more people in trucks. Then there were 500 people.”

Michalska told the AFP news agency that Poland detained 45 people, claiming that members of the group had thrown rocks and hurled tear gas shells at Polish officials while Belarusian security forces used lasers to blind them.

Al Jazeera, like all other media, is unable to independently verify claims about activity on the border as Poland has banned reporters from accessing the 3km (2 miles)-wide zone.

The latest crossings and detentions came after Belarus moved people along the border to a nearby reception center and followed the first Iraqi repatriation flight which returned hundreds to Erbil and Baghdad. These developments had appeared to signal a change of tack by Minsk that could help calm a crisis that has spiraled in recent weeks into a serious East-West confrontation.

Poland and its allies accuse Belarus of deliberately enticing thousands of migrants and refugees, many of whom are from the Middle East, and funneling them to the country’s frontier with Poland in response to Western sanctions against President Alexander Lukashenko’s government.

Minsk, backed by Russia, denies that and has accused Polish security forces of carrying out crimes against humanity while repelling people trying to enter the EU.

‘Pawns in a political game’

Aid groups say at least 11 asylum seekers and refugees have died on both sides of the border since the crisis began earlier this year – although the real number is believed to be higher – as concerns grow for people’s wellbeing as freezing winter conditions set in.

But in recent days, a flurry of diplomatic activity seemingly aimed to improve the situation.

This week, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke by telephone twice to Lukashenko, normally shunned by European leaders.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lukashenko held another phone call about the crisis and stressed the importance of cooperation between Minsk and the EU,  the Kremlin said.

Those efforts are yet to achieve a resolution, however.

On Thursday, the European Commission and Germany rejected a proposal by Minsk, under which the EU would take in 2,000 migrants and refugees now in Belarus, and 5,000 others would be sent back to their home countries.

Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig, reporting from the Polish border town Hajnowka, said those still stranded in Belarus, many of whom appear reluctant to turn back, were “just pawns … in a much larger political game taking place”.

Since the beginning of the year, Poland’s border guard service says it has recorded more than 34,000 attempted crossings from Belarus, including more than 6,000 so far in November, nearly 17,300 in October, close to 7,700 in September and more than 3,500 in August, when the crisis started.

While there has been a decline over the last month, Michalska told AFP the “latest attempts have become more aggressive”.

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Belarus’ oil pipeline operator has temporarily restricted oil flows to Poland for unscheduled maintenance, Warsaw said Wednesday amid an unfolding migrant crisis on the Belarus-Poland border.

Poland’s pipeline operator PERN Group said Russia’s Transneft pipeline monopoly had informed it that “oil pumping to Poland and Germany will be slightly reduced.”

“The monthly volume of raw material will be fulfilled as expected. The Polish oil system is fully secured and operates continuously,” it added.

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Iraqis willing and able to pay thousands of dollars for would-be “package deals” to the EU via Belarus have a variety of itineraries to choose from. 

As thousands of migrants remain stuck in the cold at the razor wire fence along the Belarus-Poland border, AFP spoke with travel agents and migrants involved.

The EU has accused Belarus, which is backed by Russia, of engineering the crisis and taken steps to stop flights from the Middle East to Minsk — but travel agents in Baghdad say they have found other ways.

“Now everything is going through Russia,” a staff member of one travel agency told AFP, asking not to be named.

“A tourist visa for Russia costs $700. Travelers need an invitation and a guarantor. That takes about 10 days to arrange. The flight itself costs $500.

“Once in Russia, traffickers take them secretly overland to the border with Belarus, and that costs another $500.”

The costs can add up to almost $2,000 for Iraqis, a huge sum for many in the war-scarred country where the average monthly salary is $300.

Ankara travel ‘hub’

For Iraqi Kurds, who make up the majority of migrants bound for Belarus, Dubai, Doha, and Ankara offer alternative routes, according to Mera Jassem Bakr, an Iraqi Arab researcher and expert on Kurdish emigration.

They do not even need visas for Qatar if Doha is only a transit point.

As for the Turkish capital, it has turned into “a hub” to acquire visas for Belarus in the migrants’ vain efforts to start a new life in the European Union, explained Bakr.

The Kurds hand their passport to travel agents, who send documents to colleagues in Ankara to apply for Belarus visas.

“Around two months ago, the whole package cost $2,500. Now it is something between $3,500 up to $4,000,” Bakr said.

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A draft bill to construct the new border wall was passed by the country’s conservative government on Tuesday. It will now be debated by MPs and voted on in the Polish parliament.

The cost of building the wall is estimated at over 1.6 billion zlotys (€353 million).

According to the proposed bill, Poland will also install movement detectors at the Belarusian border, preventing anyone from coming within 200 meters of the wall.

“The number of attempts to cross the border is on the rise,” the Polish government said on Wednesday.

Since August, thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa have tried to cross the Polish border from Belarus.

The European Union has accused Minsk of deliberately orchestrating the influx of migrants in retaliation against EU sanctions.

Poland has already sent thousands of soldiers to the border while declaring a state of emergency in the region.

Last week, Warsaw asked the European Union to fund border “fences” to prevent migrants from entering the bloc.

But Poland has also been accused by humanitarian organizations of illegally pushing back asylum-seekers into Belarus.

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The European Court of Human Rights has said the refugees should not be removed from the country, as they are already in hiding in Lithuania.

The Afghan nationals had arrived in Belarus in August and have been repeatedly attempting to reach Lithuania, the court said.

Lithuania, and other EU member states, have accused Minsk of encouraging migrants to illegally cross the border to destabilize the bloc.

The dispute has left a number of people stranded at the EU’s external borders, as Belarus also refuses to readmit them.

Five Afghan refugees had applied to the European Court of Human Rights over the issue, claiming that they had been in hiding in Lithuania since 5 September.

But the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service has said that the group has not entered the country’s territory.

In its judgment on Wednesday, the Strasbourg court said that the group had been “seeking international protection”.

The applicants had claimed that they were “westernized and educated” and were particularly vulnerable following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

And the European court agreed that the Lithuanian government should not remove them to Belarus “provided that they are already on Lithuanian territory”.

The interim measure, which is valid until the end of September, could also apply in the future to other Afghan refugees who are stranded between the EU and Belarus.

The UN migration agency has said it is concerned by “dire conditions” facing some migrants who have been stranded for weeks at the border between Poland and Belarus.

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On Thursday, there were signs that the pressure was beginning to work. An Iraqi Airways flight from Basra to Minsk was canceled. However, an aircraft belonging to another carrier, Fly Baghdad, did land in the Belarusian capital Thursday, although a flight scheduled for Friday was canceled. Iraqi Airways recently expanded its schedule of flights to Belarus, while Fly Baghdad first started trips to Minsk in May.

“We welcome the reports on the decision about the cancellation of these flights,” a European Commission spokesperson said Thursday, although they did not confirm reports that Iraqi Airways will cancel flights until August 15.

The EU has accused Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko of trying to “weaponize” the Iraqi migrants who arrive in Minsk. They are taken to the border with Lithuania and then cross into the EU; so far, 4,000 asylum seekers have entered, almost 2,800 of them from Iraq. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis estimates that up to 10,000 migrants could come into his country by the end of the summer. Last year, Lithuania received only about 80 migrants.

This migration crisis is very different from previous ones where people crossed into the EU by sea. The main access to Belarus is by air, and despite EU efforts to throttle traffic, Minsk is working hard to expand the number of flights reaching the country.

The immediate pressure is on Iraq, but there is also an increase in flights to Minsk from Turkey, also reportedly carrying asylum seekers.

The EU is ramping up pressure on Iraq to fall into line.

Charles Michel, president of the European Council, got involved, speaking to Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al Kadhimi, while EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell spoke with Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein.

Talks with the Iraqis are “done in a very constructive spirit [with] the Iraqi side conveying the willingness to cooperate and jointly address the situation,” said the Commission spokesperson.

Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria and others joined Lithuania in putting pressure on Baghdad, diplomats said. An Iraqi delegation was in Lithuania last week and visited the camps where Iraqis are staying.

Some EU diplomats say that the diplomatic effort is hampered by a lack of strong leverage over Baghdad. The Iraqis “are well aware that we cannot abandon them, we need them for our security and we cannot risk having another Afghanistan next door,” said an EU diplomat.

The bloc did threaten last month to restrict visas for Iraqis to improve cooperation in taking back people rejected for asylum. The Commission said that “Iraqi authorities cooperate only on voluntary returns and in very exceptional cases (Iraqi nationals convicted for a criminal offense) on forced returns” and that “Iraq’s cooperation with the EU on readmission matters is not sufficient and that action is needed.”

More flights

While flights from Iraq are the most pressing issue, there is also worry about the increase in routes from Turkey.

In recent weeks, Belavia — which is currently banned from European airspace after Minsk illegally diverted a Ryanair plane in May to kidnap an opposition blogger — has beefed up its schedule from Turkey. Two routes between Minsk and Istanbul that had been serviced three times a week are now flying daily. Regular flights from Izmir have been reinstated, as have several regular flights from Antalya — although those are also popular holiday destinations for Belarusians.

There is also an effort to crack down on EU-based leasing companies supplying aircraft to Belavia.

Brussels “must make sure that no European company can provide assets that facilitate the trafficking route,” Landsbergis told POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook on Wednesday.

According to an EU official, several of the jets operated by Belavia come from Ireland. A company based in Denmark, Nordic Aviation Capital, has also provided aircraft to Belavia in the past. A spokesperson for the firm said it would not comment, but the company announced last September that it had delivered the last plane of a five-jet agreement to the carrier.

Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod told POLITICO his government does not yet “have sufficient information to verify such claims” but said the case is being reviewed by Danish authorities.

“But let me be clear: If Danish companies are involved in Lukashenko’s deliberate, malicious and cynical efforts to use migrants as a political weapon to try and put pressure on Lithuania and the EU, then that would, of course, be totally unacceptable and should be stopped immediately,” he said. “If European companies aid and abet the Lukashenko regime in this way, then I firmly believe we need to revisit our current sanctions in the EU.”

SMBC Aviation Capital, a Dublin-based company that has previously leased aircraft to Belavia, said in an email on Wednesday that it had not been contacted by Irish or European authorities. The Irish government did not respond to a request for comment.

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Minsk forced the Ryanair flight from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania, to land in the Belarusian capital on Sunday after it scrambled a fighter jet, allegedly in response to a bomb threat.

On its landing, Belarusian authorities took Roman Protasevich, a 26-year-old journalist who has been critical of the government, into custody. His whereabouts remain unknown.

Protasevich is wanted in Belarus on “extremism” charges. He is accused of organising mass riots against the country’s longtime President Alexander Lukashenko, as well as inciting social hatred – allegations he denies.

Sunday’s incident led to international outrage.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda accused Minsk of undertaking a “state-sponsored terror act” and called for “serious sanctions” against Lukashenko’s government, while the EU’s executive arm labeled the move a “hijacking”.

Fear over Protasevich’s fate grow

But Russia, an ally of Lukashenko, accused Western powers of hypocrisy over their remarks.

“It is shocking that the West calls the incident in Belarusian airspace ‘shocking’,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Facebook.

“Either (they) should be shocked by … the forced (landing) in Austria of the Bolivian president’s plane at the request of the United States … Or (they) should not be shocked by similar behavior by others.”

Zakharova was citing a July 2013 incident which saw then-Bolivian President Evo Morales grounded in Vienna for several hours while his plane was stopped and searched for the whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Protasevich is wanted in Belarus on ‘extremism’ charges [File: Reuters]

Meanwhile, Belarus’ political opposition voiced growing concern for Protasevich.

Opposition leader in exile Svetlana Tikhanovskaya told UK broadcaster Sky News on Monday that she was “afraid not only for his freedom but for his life”.

“It is absolutely obvious that this is an operation of secret services to capture the plane in order to detain activist and blogger Roman Protasevich,” Tikhanovskaya, who fled Belarus for neighboring Lithuania last year amid a government crackdown on the anti-Lukashenko protests, posted on messaging app Telegram.

EU readying fresh sanctions

The plane diversion is expected to top the agenda at a two-day summit of EU leaders, who were united in their condemnation of Lukashenko, that begins Monday.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the “inadmissible step” as “yet another blatant attempt by the Belarusian authorities to silence all opposition voices”.

Borrell also indicated toughened EU sanctions against Belarus were incoming.

The bloc on Monday summoned the Belarusian ambassador to reprimand Minsk over the incident.

“Ambassador (Aleksandr) Mikhnevich was informed of the firm condemnation by the EU institutions and EU Member States of the coercive act by which the Belarusian authorities have jeopardised the safety of passengers and crew,” the European Commission said in a statement.

Minsk forced the Ryanair flight from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania, 
to land in the Belarusian capital on Sunday after it scrambled a fighter jet, 
allegedly in response to a bomb threat [Online.by/AFP]

Belgium’s foreign ministry said it had also summoned Mikhnevich – who serves as an envoy to both the EU and Belgium – over the “unjustified and unacceptable acts”.

The United States and former EU member the United Kingdom called for the immediate release of Protasevich and demanded the council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) investigated the incident.

The French presidency said a request had been sent to the ICAO to suspend international flights over Belarusian air space.

Airlines take action

Belarus lies on the flight path of some important routes in Europe as well as between Europe and Asia and being forced to fly around the country would slow airlines’ operations and increase their expenses.

But several companies indicated they would no longer use the country’s airspace following the forced landing of the Ryanair plane.

Latvian airline airBaltic became the first to do so, with Cyprus-registered Avia Solutions later announcing its Lithuania-based airlines would do the same.

Lithuania’s transport minister, Marius Skuodis, said Poland’s LOT and Hungarian airline Wizzair would follow suit and announced that all flights to and from Lithuanian airports must from midnight GMT avoid Belarusian air space.

The moves came after Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O’Leary brandished Sunday’s incident as “state-sponsored piracy”.

“It appears the intent of the authorities was to remove a journalist and his traveling companion,” he told Irish radio station Newstalk on Sunday.

O’Leary also said he believed security agents had been on the flight and had disembarked in Minsk.

‘Unfounded accusations’

The Belarusian foreign ministry said on Monday that Minsk would be ready to let experts visit if needed for an investigation into Sunday’s incident, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.

However, it insisted authorities acted legally when they diverted the plane and accused Western nations of making unfounded allegations against Minsk for political reasons.

“There is no doubt that the actions of our competent authorities … fully met established international rules,” Belarusian foreign ministry spokesman Anatoly Glaz said in a statement.

“Unfounded accusations are being made.”

The development comes amid tensions in Belarus, which saw unprecedented mass anti-government protests after a disputed election in August last year that handed Lukashenko a sixth presidential term.

Police launched an immediate crackdown on the demonstrations, reportedly detaining tens of thousands of people and beating many of those who had taken to the streets.

Luksahenko has ruled Belarus since 1994 and overseen a sweeping crackdown on 
dissent in the wake of a disputed presidential election last year [File: 
Lintao Zhang/Pool via Reuters]

The EU and the US have previously sanctioned Lukashenko and dozens of officials and businessmen tied to his government over its actions.

Although the anti-Lukashenko protests died down during the winter, Minsk has continued to take action against the country’s opposition and independent media.

Last week, 11 staff members of the TUT.by news website, an independent outlet, were detained by police.

The website is currently blocked in Belarus.

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Lukashenko also said that two people have been arrested by Russian security forces in Moscow in relation to the operation: political scientist Alexander Feduta and lawyer Yuri Zenkovich, who also has US citizenship.

It comes after the Belarusian security services, the KGB, announced on Friday evening that they had dismantled, during a “special operation”, an “organised group of terrorist orientation” which was planning the “physical elimination of the president and his family” and “the organisation of an armed rebellion in order to take power by violent means”.

In a video released by the presidency, Lukashenko claimed that “we detained the group, they showed us how they had planned everything, I remained silent.

“Then we discovered the work of clearly foreign intelligence services, most likely the FBI, the CIA,” he went on.

Neither Russia nor the US has commented on Lukashenko’s assertions.

The Belarus strongman has been in power since 1994 and claimed a landslide victory in the 2020 presidential election ruled fraudulent by the opposition and Western countries.

Since then, mass protests against his rule have taken place regularly across the country despite the violent crackdown orchestrated by the authorities. The EU, UK, and US have all imposed sanctions against high-ranking Belarusian officials over the election rigging and subsequent repression.

Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who has taken refuge in Lithuania, denounced a “provocation by the Russian and Belarusian security services, in which citizens of Belarus and the United States were dragged in”.

“It is necessary to refrain from making decisions and coming to hasty conclusions that could harm the national interests, sovereignty, and independence of Belarus,” she said, quoted by her press service.

Tikhanouskaya is to meet with the Us ambassador to Belarus next week.

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