SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iraq announced Friday a temporary suspension of flights to Belarus after the European Union accused Minsk of encouraging unauthorized arrivals of mainly Iraqi migrants in retaliation against EU sanctions.
So far this year, Lithuanian border guards have detained more than 4,000 migrants – mostly Iraqis – compared with 81 for all of 2020.
Baghdad has taken measures “to protect Iraqi citizens who have been victims of smuggling networks”, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said Friday.
Among the measures is the “temporary” suspension of direct air links between Baghdad and Minsk, he said.
Hussein said he was “worried about the issue of Iraqi migrants and the resulting dangers”, in a statement published after a phone call with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and his Lithuanian and Latvian counterparts.
Iraqi Airways spokesman Hussein Jalil told AFP on Thursday that the transport ministry had ordered the national carrier to stop flying to Belarus “for a week”, without providing a reason.
But he said that flights repatriating Iraqis to Baghdad were still planned.
European Union ministers are to hold crisis talks on the migration influx issue later this month.
“With the situation at the Lithuania-Belarus border, the EU has come under a serious security threat and is a witness of state-sponsored weaponization of illegal migration in Belarus,” a spokesman for the Slovenian EU presidency said.
(Esta Media Network/AFP)
