Russian President Vladimir Putin told the European Union on Thursday it needs to start talks with Belarus if it hopes to resolve a crisis over hundreds of migrants trapped on the border with Poland.
Concern is growing for the about 2,000 migrants, mainly Kurds from the Middle East, who are living in a tent camp on the border between Belarus and Poland in near-freezing temperatures.
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Poland is refusing to allow the migrants to cross, accusing Minsk of luring them to Belarus to send across the border in revenge for sanctions.
The EU has so far refused any direct contacts with Belarus’s strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko, who on Thursday warned that any new sanctions would be met with a response, including potentially cutting off natural gas transit to Europe.
In his second phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in as many days, Putin “spoke in favour of restoring contacts between EU states and Belarus in order to resolve this problem,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
Merkel had called Putin on Wednesday to ask him to “use his influence” on Lukashenko to end the crisis.
The EU cut off contacts with Lukashenko and imposed sanctions after a heavy crackdown on the opposition following a disputed presidential election last year.
The bloc is expected to decide next week to impose new sanctions for human trafficking because of the migrant crisis.
Lukashenko said Thursday that Minsk “must respond” if the EU takes new measures, raising the possibility of cutting off transit through a pipeline that carries Russian natural gas through Belarus to Poland and further into Europe.
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“We are heating Europe, and they are threatening us,” he said. “And what if we halt natural gas supplies?”
