Baghdad announced Friday August 6 the “
temporary
”
suspension
of flights to Belarus and called on Iraqis “
not to fall into the trap
” of human trafficking, after the EU accused Minsk of instrumentalizing migrants who cross illegally into Lithuania.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein said he was "
concerned about the issue of Iraqi migrants and the resulting dangers
" in a statement released after he spoke by phone with the
foreign minister
European Josep Borrell and his Lithuanian and Latvian counterparts.
Read also: Belarus: chilling testimonies of an ordinary dictatorship
Baghdad, he continued, has taken measures “
to protect Iraqi citizens who are victims of smuggling networks
”. One of these measures is the “
temporary
”
suspension
of direct air links between Baghdad and Minsk. Asked by AFP, Hussein Jalil, a spokesman for Iraqi Airways, indicated that "
order
" had been given by the Ministry of Transport to the national company to no longer serve Belarus "
for a week
", without give the reason. Iraqi repatriation flights to Baghdad, on the other hand, are "
planned
", he stressed.
The Lithuanian authorities suspect the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko of orchestrating an influx of migrants, particularly Iraqis, in retaliation for European Union sanctions due to political repression in Belarus. Since the beginning of the year, Lithuania, a member country of the EU and NATO, has registered more than 2,000 new arrivals - mostly Iraqis - who have illegally crossed the border with Belarus. A crisis meeting was convened on August 18 by the Slovenian EU Presidency to react to the “
security threat
” represented by the instrumentalisation of this migration by Minsk.
The EU is preparing "
stronger economic sanctions
" to stop illegal crossings, warned Josep Borrell during a meeting of EU foreign ministers in July. These steps could be discussed and taken at a ministerial meeting on September 21. The Europeans adopted economic and individual sanctions at the end of June to punish the Belarusian authorities after the diversion to Minsk of a flight from the company Ryanair from Athens to Vilnius to arrest an opponent of the regime. The EU has hit the key potash, oil and tobacco sectors in Belarus.