UNITED NATIONS, United States: European countries and the US condemned Belarus on Thursday (Friday in Manila) over a crisis that has seen hundreds of migrants trapped on its border with Poland, after an emergency meeting at the UN Security Council on the tense standoff between Minsk and the European Union.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has urged the EU to start talks with diplomatically isolated Belarus over the roughly 2,000 migrants, mainly Kurds from the Middle East, who are living in a tent camp on the border between Belarus and Poland in near-freezing temperatures.