Poland mulls asking NATO to hold emergency talks amid migrant border crisis with Belarus
CBC
Poland, Lithuania and Latvia are considering asking NATO to hold emergency talks as they struggle to manage a tense migration standoff on their borders with Belarus, the Polish prime minister said Sunday.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he and his two Baltic counterparts are discussing whether to ask for such talks under the NATO treaty, which allows any ally to request consultations if it feels its territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened.
Still, it's a step that has only been requested a few times in the history of the Western alliance.
The authoritarian Belarusian regime in Minsk has for months been orchestrating a flow of migrants across its border into the three European Union nations, which form the eastern flank of both the 27-nation EU and NATO.
In response, the three have been reinforcing their borders.
In an interview with state news agency PAP, Morawiecki vowed that Poland's border with Belarus "will be an effective and final barrier" to actions by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
"There is no doubt that things have gone too far," Morawiecki said.
Many migrants are now stuck in makeshift camps in freezing weather as Poland has reinforced its border with 15,000 soldiers in addition to border guards and police.
Most are fleeing conflict, poverty or hopelessness in Syria and Iraq and hope to reach Germany or elsewhere in western Europe.
The situation grew more dramatic last week as a large group of migrants appeared across the border from the Polish town of Kuznica.
More arrived there on Sunday, and Poland's Interior Ministry released a video showing police warning the people: "If you don't follow the orders, force may be used against you."
In Baghdad, the Iraqi government urged its citizens stranded at the edge of the EU to return home voluntarily on Iraqi Airways flights that the government is providing.
Ahmed al-Sahhaf, the spokesperson for Iraq's Foreign Ministry, told The Associated Press on Sunday that "large groups of Iraqi migrants are being exposed to difficult humanitarian situations."
He said the ministry has also suspended the work permit of Belarus' honorary consul in Baghdad to stop the issuing of entry visas to Belarus.
Panic swept through eastern Congo's second-largest city on Saturday as residents fled by the thousands, scrambling to escape the looming advance of Rwanda-backed rebels.
Hamas militants released three male Israeli hostages on Saturday and Israeli forces began releasing hundreds of prisoners in return after Egyptian and Qatari mediators helped avert a standoff that threatened to sink a fragile ceasefire in Gaza.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that his country wants "security guarantees" before any talks with Russia, as the Trump administration presses both countries to find a quick endgame to the three-year war.
A Russian drone caused significant damage to the radiation containment shelter at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant overnight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday, an allegation the Kremlin denied.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday Ukraine would not accept any bilateral agreements on its fate reached by Moscow and Washington in its absence, and called for Europe to have a seat at the negotiating table at the end of the war.
U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says a return to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is unrealistic and the Trump administration does not see NATO membership for Kyiv as part of a solution to the war triggered by Russia's invasion.