Polish and Belarusian foreign ministers meet in New York for first time in a decade — Notes from Poland
Polish and Belarusian Foreign Ministers Radosław Sikorski and Maksim Ryzhenkov held a meeting in New York, United States, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. These were the first known talks between the heads of the two countries’ foreign ministries in ten years, Notes from Poland reports.
According to Sikorski, the initiative for the meeting came from the Belarusian side. The Polish minister described the talks as introductory and noted that contacts are also taking place at the level of other ministries. He added that Poland will soon open a new embassy building in Minsk.
Border and regional security
Sikorski said that the situation on the shared border and regional security were among the topics of the talks. Asked whether he had requested that Belarus not allow Russia, the aggressor state, to use Belarusian territory for the flight of drones and missiles, the minister replied that this issue had also been discussed.
The previous known meeting of the Polish and Belarusian foreign ministers took place in Warsaw in October 2016, when Belarusian minister Vladimir Makei met with Witold Waszczykowski. According to Sikorski, the current contact became possible, in particular, due to the more normalized situation at the border.
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Poland installed physical and electronic barriers along the border, deployed thousands of armed personnel there, and banned the consideration of asylum applications from migrants crossing the border irregularly. As the outlet notes, following these measures, the number of attempts to cross the border has decreased significantly this year.
Release of political prisoners and criticism of talks
Sikorski also linked the possibility of stabilizing relations to the recent release of political prisoners in Belarus, including Poles. Among them was Andrzej Poczobut, one of the leaders of Belarus’s Polish community, who spent five years in prison.
Following the meeting, Belarus’s Foreign Ministry said it was ready to receive the Polish side in Minsk and called for the regular development of contacts. At the same time, former Polish intelligence services spokesperson Stanisław Żaryn criticized the talks, saying that Belarus would not abandon its strategic alliance with Russia. Franak Viačorka, a representative of the Belarusian democratic opposition in exile, also expressed skepticism, stating that the authorities in Minsk cannot be trusted.
