Belarusian airline stops flying Middle East citizens from Turkey
State-owned carrier Belavia bars Syrians, Yemenis and Iraqis from boarding flights at Ankara’s request as the migrant crisis grows
Belarusian state-owned airline Belavia has said it will stop allowing citizens of Iraq, Syria and Yemen to board flights from Turkey to Belarus at the request of Turkish authorities.
“In line with a decision by the … Turkish authorities, citizens of Iraq, Syria, Yemen will not be accepted for transportation on flights from Turkey to Belarus from 12.11.2021,” Belavia said on Friday, in a statement on its website.
The Turkish Civil Aviation Authority confirmed the statement, saying flight tickets to Minsk would not be sold to people from the three countries from Turkey.
The Belarusian flag carrier’s move comes as the Belarus-Poland border crisis escalates, with thousands of migrants and refugees stranded near the frontier, hoping to enter the European Union.
Poland and other EU member states have for months accused Belarus of encouraging people to try and cross the Polish border in revenge for Western sanctions imposed on Minsk, after the disputed August 2020 election that handed longtime President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term. Minsk denies those charges.
More people have been arriving this week, which has led to further Western allegations against Belarus.
Warsaw is further boosting security along the frontier, while the EU is weighing new sanctions on Lukashenko’s government and the airlines it says are involved in the “hybrid attack”.
On Thursday, Bloomberg news agency reported that the bloc had agreed with Turkey that it would monitor Belarus-bound flights in an effort to prevent them from being used to take migrants and refugees towards the Polish border, citing an unnamed EU official.
However, Turkey, which hosts four million mainly Syrian refugees, said it rejected any portrayal of Ankara “as part of the problem”.
“Turkey … is not a party to this issue,” the foreign ministry said on Thursday, adding Ankara viewed the monitoring of its flag-carrier, Turkish Airlines, as “intentional”.
Estonia, France, Ireland, Norway, the United States and the United Kingdom raised concerns over the situation during a closed-door meeting of the 15-member body.
“We condemn the orchestrated instrumentalisation of human beings whose lives and wellbeing have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus, with the objective of destabilising neighboring countries and the European Union’s external border and diverting attention away from its own increasing human rights violations,” they said in a statement.
The statement accused Lukashenko of becoming a threat to regional stability and called for a “strong international reaction” to hold Minsk accountable, pledging “to discuss further measures that we can take”.