News

In the evening of 13 July in Ankara, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Gabrielius Landsbergis, together with the Chancellor of the Government Giedrė Balčytytė and the Vice-Minister of the Interior Arnoldas Abramavičius, met with Turkey's Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and the Minister of the Interior Süleyman Soylu. The main purpose of the visit to Ankara was to take joint action to stop the flow of illegal migrants to Lithuania from Belarus, to prevent the emergence of a new illegal migration route to Lithuania through Belarus, and to put an end to the existing criminal human smuggling schemes.

Landsbergis stressed that Lithuania and Turkey were partners, who successfully cooperated within the North Atlantic Organisation. “What Lithuania is experiencing is not a refugee crisis. This is a hybrid war of the regime of Alexander Lukashenko against Lithuania. The Belarusian regime, under the pretext of scheduled commercial air transportation, possibly uses the Istanbul Airport as a transit point on the route of illegal migration, which is organised by the regime,” said Landsbergis.

The interlocutors agreed to work together to stop illegal migration flows to Europe. Turkey, as a transit country for illegal migrants from neighbouring regions, is becoming increasingly important. Probably around 20 % of all arrivals via the Istanbul Airport to Minsk are of illegal migrants. Landsbergis asked the Turkish authorities to pay more attention and to make greater effort to prevent the Belarusian regime's hybrid attacks against Europe, where illegal migration was used as a weapon.

Turkish officials assured that the country's authorities were ready to share their experiences and knowledge with Lithuanian officials about the effective border management and identification of third-country nationals in the near future. It was agreed that a small delegation of experts would come to Turkey this week to discuss specific cooperation measures. The Foreign Minister's meetings focused on the exchange of information between the two countries to help identify irregular migrants expeditiously.
 
From Ankara, Landsbergis will travel to Baghdad, Iraq, where he will discuss opportunities for cooperation on illegal migration with the Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein.