ISTANBUL: Blaming Turkey or its national airline for the humanitarian crisis at the Polish border with Belarus is "misguided", President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's top foreign policy adviser told AFP on Saturday.
Ankara on Friday banned citizens of three Middle Eastern countries from flying from Turkish airports to the former Soviet republic because of "the problem of illegal border crossings between the European Union and Belarus".
The decision came days after EU chief Ursula von der Leyen raised the possibility of imposing sanctions on airlines that engage in "human trafficking".
Turkish Airlines provides one of the most heavily used international links to the Belarusian capital Minsk. But Erdogan's foreign policy aide Ibrahim Kalin said accusations that Turkey somehow contributed to the border crisis were unjust.
"This recent crisis of illegal migrants between Belarus, Poland, Lithuania and a few other European countries, in fact, has nothing to do with Turkey," he said in an exclusive interview.
"Travellers are going to Belarus and from there to Lithuania, Poland and other EU countries. Blaming Turkey for that, or Turkish Airlines, is simply so misguided, misplaced," he said.
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