UN Security Council members call Lukashenka regime ‘threat to regional stability’
On the back of the meeting on November 11, Estonia, France, Ireland, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States (current members of the UN Security Council) and the incoming member Albania issued a joint statement on the Belarusian authorities’ activities with regard to the instrumentalization of migrants.
The above mentioned states condemned ‘the orchestrated instrumentalization of human beings’ whose lives and wellbeing have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus, with the objective of destabilizing neighboring countries and the European Union’s external border and diverting attention away from its own increasing human rights violations.
According to them, such tactic is ‘unacceptable’ and calls for a strong international reaction and cooperation in order to hold Belarus accountable.
“It [tactic] demonstrates how the Lukashenka regime has become a threat to regional stability. We call on the Belarusian authorities to stop these inhumane actions and not to put people’s lives at risk. International organizations need to be provided with immediate and unhindered access to people therein to deliver humanitarian assistance,” the statement reads.
Expressing their solidarity with Poland and Lithuania, the seven states announced discussing further measures to support them and ‘target those involved in and contributing to activities by the Lukashenka regime that facilitate the illegal crossing of the external borders of the European Union’. They also vowed to ‘remain united and determined’ in protecting the EU against ‘the hybrid operations by Belarusian authorities’.
