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Alexander Lukashenko (archive recording)
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Pavel Orlovsky / dpa
Because of the crisis surrounding the migrants on the Polish-Belarusian border, Angela Merkel called the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko again.
This was announced by the Presidential Office of Belarus on Wednesday evening in the capital Minsk.
The phone call was later confirmed by Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert.
Merkel and Lukashenko agreed on the second phone call that there should be talks between representatives of the EU and Belarus to solve the problem, said the office of the President.
Merkel had called for "humanitarian care and return opportunities for the people affected" in cooperation with the UN and the EU Commission, Seibert reported.
It was only on Monday that the two of them had a phone call that lasted about 50 minutes.
For this, there had been some violent criticism of the Chancellor.
It was Merkel's first conversation with Lukashenko since his controversial re-election as president in August last year.
The background to this is massive allegations of fraud in elections and the actions of the security forces against peaceful demonstrators and civil society.
The Greens foreign politician Omid Nouripour spoke of a "devastating signal" after the first conversation between Merkel and Lukashenko.
Because the EU did not recognize the controversial re-election of Lukashenko last year.
With her phone call, however, Merkel de facto achieved this recognition.
Merkel's designated successor Olaf Scholz recently called for "clear, tough" sanctions against Lukashenko.
This is a "very bad dictator" and has lost all legitimacy.
One must work to ensure that a democratic process can take place in Belarus.
One shouldn't play the game of Lukashenko and the smuggler, who lured people to Belarus with false promises.
Thousands of migrants have been stranded on the Belarusian-Polish border for days.
The EU accuses Lukashenko of organizing migrants from crisis regions to the EU's external border in order to put pressure on them.
as / dpa / AFP
