Lithuania asks Turkey to help it identify migrants from Belarus

By Andrius Sytas

VILNIUS (Reuters) – Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on Wednesday that he had asked his Turkish counterpart to help identify migrants coming into Lithuania from Belarus.

“A large part of the people (coming into Lithuania from Belarus) arrive there from Turkey, on Turkish airlines. We believe that Turkey knows their identities”, he told reporters in Vilnius on Wednesday.

“In cooperation with Turkey, we can easily determine their identities and demand they are accepted by the states they originate from.”

Landsbergis said had summoned the head of Belarus’s embassy on Wednesday to demand that Minsk end the flow of illegal migrants across their common border.

(Reporting by Andrius Sytas; Editing by Kevin Liffey)