Merkel speaks with Putin as Poland-Belarus border crisis escalates

BERLIN

The German chancellor and Russian president discussed the Poland-Belarus border crisis in a phone talk on Wednesday.

Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said the chancellor called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to use his influence on Belarus to stop the use of migrants as a political tool to exert pressure on the EU.

“She underlined that the instrumentalization of migrants by the Belarusian regime is inhumane and unacceptable,” Seibert said on Twitter.

Tensions between Poland and Belarus escalated on Monday after nearly 4,000 migrants, mostly from the Middle East countries, headed to the Polish border and tried to breach the barriers.

Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki had accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of engineering the migration crisis.

A Kremlin statement emphasized that Putin told Merkel that the EU should discuss the migration crisis directly with Belarus.

The statement said both the leaders discussed the refugee situation on the borders of Belarus with the EU countries and expressed concerns over the humanitarian consequences of the migration crisis.

Putin proposed direct talks between the representatives of the EU member states and Belarus to address the problems, the Kremlin said.

The leaders agreed to continue the conversation on this topic, the statement added.

The EU accuses Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of engaging in a form of “hybrid” warfare and using migrants as a weapon to destabilize the European countries.

*Elena Teslova contributed to this report from Moscow