Belarus responds to latest EU sanctions with its own bans

(dpa/NAN)

Belarus has retaliated against the international community’s latest round of sanctions by imposing its own entry bans and import restrictions, announced by the Foreign Ministry in Minsk on Monday.

Belarus will ban “the import of a number of goods originating from the states applying the illegitimate anti-Belarusian sanctions,’’ the ministry said.

It is also to impose restrictions on EU and British airlines, in a tit-for-tat response to the sanctioning of Belarusian state carrier, Belavia, for its role in the migrant stand-off at the European Union’s eastern flank.

The names of the companies and individuals affected by the sanctions were not specified, neither were the countries to be targeted by the import ban on unspecified goods.

The announcement did, however, underscore the importance of strengthening economic relations with Russia.

Earlier, the EU, Britain, United States and Canada imposed fresh sanctions on Belarus, noting its continued attempt to stoke a crisis at the EU border by deliberately transporting refugees from war-torn countries to Minsk and then enabling them to travel onwards toward Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

Many migrants had been stuck waiting in the border region for weeks, hoping to continue their journey to Europe.

According to the national border guard, Poland has to date registered around 40,000 attempted illegal border crossings, 8,900 of them in November alone.