By Jo Harper
WARSAW (AA) – Poland’s foreign minister on Friday reiterated calls for Belarus to extradite to Poland the person who fatally wounded a Polish soldier on the countries’ shared border.
"We demand that the Belarusian authorities establish the identity of this murderer and hand him over to Polish law enforcement agencies," Radoslaw Sikorski told reporters, adding that a protest note had been handed to the Belarusian authorities.
“It is completely unacceptable for a neighboring country to behave this way towards its neighbor,” Sikorski said.
A Polish soldier who was stabbed at the border last week died at the Military Medical Institute in Warsaw on Thursday, the Armed Forces General Command said.
Speaking to Belarus’ state-run BelTA agency, Anatoly Glaz, a Belarus Foreign Ministry spokesman, appealed to Poland to restore "normal border contacts so that such tragedies do not occur." He also expressed condolences to Poland for the soldier's death, but also accused Warsaw of being responsible for the bad relations between the two countries.
“A few years ago, the Polish side actively and quite loudly broke off cooperation with Belarus in the field of law enforcement, broke off contacts in matters of legal assistance and dialogue between border commissioners. All this, I emphasize, was done unilaterally by the Polish leadership,” said Glaz.
“We are open to dialogue with respect for both sides. Belarus is ready to restore interaction in the sphere of law enforcement, but, as we know, it is a two-way street,” he added. “Such public notes are not a way to systematically solve the problem, but excessive politicization of a very specific issue, an attempt to justify oneself to one's own public opinion and shift responsibility,” he said.
There will be no official response from the Polish side to these comments, Pawel Wronski, Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman, told the Polish news service.
"Disputes regarding mutual border contacts have nothing to do with what we are demanding,” Wronski said. “The matter is simple: either Belarus protects this murderer or it intends to act at least in accordance with the principles of law and decency,.”
Poland and international organizations have said Belarus is deliberately sending migrants over the border into the EU to create havoc in the EU member state. After a sharp in migrants crossing the border in 2021, and a lull in 2023, this year has again seen rising numbers.
Three Polish soldiers were arrested this week for firing live ammunition in the direction of migrants crossing the border in March.