UNITED NATIONS, US: The United States and European delegations on the UN Security Council condemned on Thursday Belarus's behavior in the migrant crisis on its border with Poland.
Poland says the government of strongman Alexander Lukashenko has lured about 2,000 migrants, mainly Kurds from the Middle East, to Belarus for the purpose of sending them across the border into Poland and thus the EU in revenge for sanctions.
These people are now living in a tent camp on the border in near freezing temperatures. Poland refuses to allow them in.
After an emergency meeting on the crisis the Western delegations at the Security Council issued a joint statement condemning "the orchestrated instrumentalization of human beings whose lives and wellbeing have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus."
They said Belarus is doing this with "the objective of destabilizing neighboring countries and the European Union's external border and diverting attention away from its own increasing human rights violations."
The statement made no mention of Belarus ally Russia, which before the meeting rejected western allegations that it was working in conjunction with Minsk to send the migrants over the EU's eastern border into Poland.
"This tactic is unacceptable and calls for a strong international reaction and cooperation in order to hold Belarus accountable," the Western statement said without mentioning any kind of concrete measures to punish Belarus.
"It demonstrates how the Lukashenko regime has become a threat to regional stability. We call on the Belarusian authorities to stop these inhumane actions and not to put people's lives at risk," it added.
Russia's deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said "no, absolutely not" when asked about Western charges that Russia and Belarus are sending migrants into Poland.
Asked about flights of Russian fighter jets over Belarus, he said this was in response to what he called a massive build up of Polish forces on the border.
"We have our obligations also within the unity between Russia and Belarus. So if there is a buildup of military resources on the border with Belarus, we have to react. This is just reconnaissance flights, nothing more than this," he said.
Asked if the deployment of Russian forces on the border with Ukraine meant Russia planned to invade its neighbor, Polyanskiy said: "Never planned, never did, and never will do, unless we're provoked, of course, by Ukraine or by somebody else.
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Western countries at UN condemn Belarus over border crisis
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Western countries at UN condemn Belarus over border crisis
- Poland says the government of strongman Alexander Lukashenko has lured about 2,000 migrants, mainly Kurds from the Middle East
US military boards sanctioned oil tanker in Indian Ocean
- Tanker tracking website says Aquila II departed the Venezuelan coast after US forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro
- Pentagon says it 'hunted' the vessel all the way from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean
WASHINGTON: US military forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the ship from the Caribbean Sea, the Pentagon said Monday.
The Pentagon’s statement on social media did not say whether the ship was connected to Venezuela, which faces US sanctions on its oil and relies on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.
However, the Aquila II was one of at least 16 tankers that departed the Venezuelan coast last month after US forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro, said Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com. He said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document the ship’s movements.
According to data transmitted from the ship on Monday, it is not currently laden with a cargo of crude oil.
The Aquila II is a Panamanian-flagged tanker under US sanctions related to the shipment of illicit Russian oil. Owned by a company with a listed address in Hong Kong, ship tracking data shows it has spent much of the last year with its radio transponder turned off, a practice known as “running dark” commonly employed by smugglers to hide their location.
US Southern Command, which oversees Latin America, said in an email that it had nothing to add to the Pentagon’s post on X. The post said the military “conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction” on the ship.
“The Aquila II was operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean,” the Pentagon said. “It ran, and we followed.”
The US did not say it had seized the ship, which the US has done previously with at least seven other sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela.
A Navy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations, would not say what forces were used in the operation but confirmed the destroyers USS Pinckney and USS John Finn as well as the mobile base ship USS Miguel Keith were operating in the Indian Ocean.
In videos the Pentagon posted to social media, uniformed forces can be seen boarding a Navy helicopter that takes off from a ship that matches the profile of the Miguel Keith. Video and photos of the tanker shot from inside a helicopter also show a Navy destroyer sailing alongside the ship.
Since the US ouster of Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid on Jan. 3, the Trump administration has set out to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s petroleum products. Officials in President Donald Trump’s Republican administration have made it clear they see seizing the tankers as a way to generate cash as they seek to rebuild Venezuela’s battered oil industry and restore its economy.
Trump also has been trying to restrict the flow of oil to Cuba, which faces strict economic sanctions by the US and relies heavily on oil shipments from allies like Mexico, Russia and Venezuela.
Since the Venezuela operation, Trump has said no more Venezuelan oil will go to Cuba and that the Cuban government is ready to fall. Trump also recently signed an executive order that would impose a tariff on any goods from countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba, primarily pressuring Mexico because it has acted as an oil lifeline for Cuba.
The Pentagon’s statement on social media did not say whether the ship was connected to Venezuela, which faces US sanctions on its oil and relies on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.
However, the Aquila II was one of at least 16 tankers that departed the Venezuelan coast last month after US forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro, said Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com. He said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document the ship’s movements.
According to data transmitted from the ship on Monday, it is not currently laden with a cargo of crude oil.
The Aquila II is a Panamanian-flagged tanker under US sanctions related to the shipment of illicit Russian oil. Owned by a company with a listed address in Hong Kong, ship tracking data shows it has spent much of the last year with its radio transponder turned off, a practice known as “running dark” commonly employed by smugglers to hide their location.
US Southern Command, which oversees Latin America, said in an email that it had nothing to add to the Pentagon’s post on X. The post said the military “conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction” on the ship.
“The Aquila II was operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean,” the Pentagon said. “It ran, and we followed.”
The US did not say it had seized the ship, which the US has done previously with at least seven other sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela.
A Navy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations, would not say what forces were used in the operation but confirmed the destroyers USS Pinckney and USS John Finn as well as the mobile base ship USS Miguel Keith were operating in the Indian Ocean.
In videos the Pentagon posted to social media, uniformed forces can be seen boarding a Navy helicopter that takes off from a ship that matches the profile of the Miguel Keith. Video and photos of the tanker shot from inside a helicopter also show a Navy destroyer sailing alongside the ship.
Since the US ouster of Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid on Jan. 3, the Trump administration has set out to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s petroleum products. Officials in President Donald Trump’s Republican administration have made it clear they see seizing the tankers as a way to generate cash as they seek to rebuild Venezuela’s battered oil industry and restore its economy.
Trump also has been trying to restrict the flow of oil to Cuba, which faces strict economic sanctions by the US and relies heavily on oil shipments from allies like Mexico, Russia and Venezuela.
Since the Venezuela operation, Trump has said no more Venezuelan oil will go to Cuba and that the Cuban government is ready to fall. Trump also recently signed an executive order that would impose a tariff on any goods from countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba, primarily pressuring Mexico because it has acted as an oil lifeline for Cuba.
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