On 17 September 2026, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Baiba Braže, met with the US Special Envoy to Belarus, John Coale. The officials discussed ways to mitigate and prevent the Belarusian regime’s instrumentalisation of migration, which poses a threat to the external borders of the European Union and NATO, as well as to regional security.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs expressed her gratitude to the US for its support to date for the security of Latvia and the Baltic region, including for strengthening Latvia’s role as an external border of the European Union and NATO. Baiba Braže also highly commended the US’s involvement in securing the release of political prisoners in Belarus. “As long as the regime continues to repress its own citizens and threaten the security of neighbouring countries, the international community must continue to exert pressure on Minsk,” the Minister of Foreign Affairs emphasised.
The Minister briefed the US Special Envoy on the current situation at the Latvian-Belarusian border and the measures Latvia has implemented to strengthen border security. Latvia continues to face increased pressure from illegal migration – since the beginning of the year, more than 11,000 attempts to cross the Latvian-Belarusian border illegally have been prevented.
“The Belarusian regime continues to use people as a tool to exert pressure on Latvia and the European Union. This is not just a migration issue – it is part of Russia’s war doctrine to weaken the unity of the allies, place an additional burden on our State Border Guard, and threaten the security of the EU and NATO borders,” Baiba Braže noted.
The international community must continue and intensify pressure on the Belarusian regime. As long as repression against the people of Belarus, the instrumentalisation of migration and other actions that threaten the security of Latvia and other European Union and NATO Member States continue, sanctions pressure must be maintained.
The US President’s Special Envoy to Belarus also met with the Prime Minister, Andris Kulbergs, and the Chief of the State Border Guard, General Guntis Pujāts.
