Poland will reject border crisis accords made without it, president says

Poland will reject all agreements regarding the migrant crisis on its border with Belarus made without its participation, the Polish president said on Wednesday.

Duda told a press conference after talks with Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic that he had presented the Polish standpoint at earlier talks with German head of state Frank-Walter Steinmeier, which largely focused on recent talks on the border crisis between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

"I told the German president that Poland will not accept any decisions made over its head (without Poland’s participation - PAP). We have a right to decide about ourselves and we will make absolute use of this right. If any decisions are to be binding for Poland and the Polish authorities... then these will be decisions we alone will make," Duda said.

Thousands of mostly Middle Eastern migrants are now camped on the Belarusian side of the Polish-Belarusian border, brought there, according to the Polish government, by the government of Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president.

Poland and the Baltic States accuse Lukashenko of engineering the crisis to destabilise the EU in retaliation for sanctions imposed by Brussels.