Iraq returns first refugees from Belarus | free press
After all flights to Belarus have been halted, Iraqi authorities are now pulling their citizens back from Minsk to avoid a refugee crisis with the EU. According to Baghdad’s foreign ministry, Iraqi diplomats in the Belarusian capital are issuing new passports for Iraqis who wanted to enter the EU country of Lithuania via Belarus and…
After all flights to Belarus have been halted, Iraqi authorities are now pulling their citizens back from Minsk to avoid a refugee crisis with the EU. According to Baghdad’s foreign ministry, Iraqi diplomats in the Belarusian capital are issuing new passports for Iraqis who wanted to enter the EU country of Lithuania via Belarus and are now detained. Baghdad sends empty passenger planes to Minsk to fly the Iraqis back.
Thousands of Iraqis have flown to Belarus on tourist visas in recent months to cross the 600-kilometer-long border into Lithuanian EU territory. According to Lithuanian broadcaster LRT, the country’s border forces have already received 4,000 mostly Iraqi refugees at the border with Belarus this year; last year there were fewer than 100. The Iraqis are being lured by smugglers with the promise of an uncomplicated transfer from Belarus to the EU and are paying more than EUR 10,000 for the trip, according to media reports.
Iraq ranks fifth among the countries of origin of asylum seekers in the EU, after Syria, Afghanistan, Venezuela and Colombia. Last year, nearly 20,000 Iraqis applied for asylum in the EU, more than half of them in Germany.
The EU accuses Belarus of deliberately luring Iraqi refugees to avenge EU sanctions against the regime of ruler Alexander Lukashenko. Until recently, only the state-owned Iraqi Airways flew to Minsk, but on demand, the private airline Fly Baghdad also set up regular flights. Both companies have now removed the destination Minsk from the program. They followed a government instruction.
After talks with EU Foreign Affairs representative Josep Borrell and other EU politicians, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein stated that the Iraqis had traveled to Belarus quite legally as tourists, but had become victims of smuggling gangs. The Iraqis trapped in Minsk would now be flown back, Hussein said. He called on the citizens of his country not to offend the people smugglers.
EU pressure on Baghdad worked because Iraq does not want to jeopardize its relations with the EU. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi recently campaigned for EU support for his political and economic reform program during a visit to Brussels. Before that, Kadhimi had also visited the US: he wants to reduce his country’s dependence on neighboring Iran with Western support. Baghdad therefore wants to avoid a fight with the EU about the refugees in Belarus.
Lithuania also sees flight connections from Turkey to Belarus as a possible route for refugees to the EU. According to the LRT, President Gitanas Nauseda said he wanted to discuss the matter with his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis had already requested a reduction in flights in Ankara in mid-July. There are currently several daily connections from Istanbul to Minsk.
Turkey, out of self-interest, has no reason to support Lukashenko in its course against the EU: Ankara already supplies 3.6 million Syrians and about half a million Afghans and does not want to attract any more refugees who want to travel to Europe via Turkish territory.
