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Andrzej Duda, the president, has said that Poland wants to have a frontier with a free and independent Belarus, and not with an occupied territory.
“We want to border a free, sovereign and independent Belarus whose society, a brotherly nation, can decide about itself,” Duda said after a meeting with Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and representatives of the Belarusian opposition at the Belweder palace in Warsaw on Thursday.
Tsikhanouskaya, who was Alexander Lukashenko’s contender in the latest presidential election, was forced to emigrate after Lukashenko won the ballot, which the West and the Belarusian opposition say was rigged.
“We do not want to border an occupied territory where there is the Russian army, which has been fighting against a free and independent society,”
the president said.
Duda stated that Poland had been supporting the Belarusian opposition and would continue to do this because “…the Polish people are deeply convinced that the struggle will be successful for Belarusians who want to have a free and sovereign country.”
He gave his assurance that Belarusians who fled their country were welcome in Poland and said that he wanted them to see this country as another home.
Referring to the ongoing war in Ukraine, Duda said that he would do his best to tell the world that authentic Belarusians were not Russians and that they would never approve of Russian occupation and dominance.
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