WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland will be ready to reopen two more border crossings with Belarus in November, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday. Poland closed its border with Belarus on September 12 as a result of Russia-led military exercises taking place in Belarus and 21 Russian drones entering its airspace on the night of September […]
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Poland may open more border crossings with Belarus next month, Tusk says
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WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland will be ready to reopen two more border crossings with Belarus in November, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.
Poland closed its border with Belarus on September 12 as a result of Russia-led military exercises taking place in Belarus and 21 Russian drones entering its airspace on the night of September 9-10.
The Polish government decided to reopen several rail crossings and one road crossing on September 23.
“We will be ready this year, in November, to open two border crossings, in Bobrowniki and Kuznica,” Tusk said at a business event in Bialystok in eastern Poland.
“Once I settle this matter with the Lithuanians, we should open these two crossings in November, let’s say on a trial basis. If it turns out that the border needs to be closed again, I won’t hesitate for a moment.”
Neighbouring Lithuania closed Vilnius Airport four times last week after balloons entered its airspace, and each time temporarily shut its Belarus border crossings in response to the incidents.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday that Lithuania’s closure of the border was a “crazy scam” and accused the West of fighting a hybrid war against Belarus and Russia that was ushering in a new era of barbed-wire division.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz, Writing by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Editing by Timothy Heritage)