Migrants clash with riot police on the Greek-turkish border
● EU ministers hold emergency meeting to discuss ongoing crisis
Clashes between Greek riot police and migrants attempting to cross the border from Turkey erupted anew yesterday as European Union foreign ministers held an emergency meeting to discuss the situation on the Turkeygreece border and in Syria, where Turkish troops are fighting.
Greek riot-control police used tear gas and a water cannon to drive back people trying to cross the land border in the morning. Turkish police fired volleys of tear gas back toward Greece.
Thousands of refugees and other migrants have been trying to get into Greece through the country’s eastern land and sea borders in the past week after Turkey declared its previously guarded borders with Europe were open.
Turkey’s interior minister said on Thursday the government planned to deploy 1,000 special operations police to prevent Greek authorities from forcing back migrants who managed to cross. Many asylum-seekers have been camping out on the Turkish side despite Greek insistence that its border is closed. Reporters were kept away from the border area on the Turkish side but saw at least one bus full of people leaving the area yesterday morning. It was unclear where the bus was headed. Mohammad Omid, an Afghan who has been at the border for five days with his wife, said Turkish police told him to go to there.
“We don’t know what is happening. We are like toys to them,” he said in the border town of Edirne. “We are like a ball to them. Everyone passes us to this side and the other side. I don’t know what will happen to us.”
After months of threats, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said his country will no longer be the gatekeeper for Europe. He has demanded Europe shoulder more of the burden of caring for refugees, although the EU insists it is abiding by a deal in which it disbursed billions of euros in refugee aide in return for Turkey keeping Europe bound migrants and refugees on its soil. His decision and its aftermath have alarmed EU countries, which are still seeing political fallout from mass migration that started five years ago.
Erdogan’s move came amid a Syrian government offensive in Syria’s Idlib province, where Turkish troops are fighting. The Russia-backed offensive has killed dozens of Turkish troops and sent nearly a million Syrian civilians toward Turkey’s sealed border. Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin brokered a cease-fire for Idlib that took effect at midnight. It was not clear whether the agreement would also affect the situation on the Turkish-greek border. Greek officials have repeatedly stressed those attempting to cross the border are not refugees from Idlib, and mostly not Syrian.
Speaking to a group of journalists on his return from Moscow, Erdogan signaled that there would be no change to Turkey’s policy.
“We don’t have time to discuss with Greece whether the gates which we opened are now closed. That business is over,” Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Erdogan as saying. “Our gates are open. The refugees will go as far as they can. We are not forcing them to leave.”
Erdogan also accused Greece of cruelty in its treatment of the migrants and told reporters he refused to attend a possible meeting in Bulgaria to discuss the migration issue. He said he did not want to appear “in the same frame” as the Greek prime minister. EU foreign ministers met in in Zagreb, Croatia to discuss for an emergency meeting on Syria and the immigration pressure at the Greek border.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell welcomed the Syria cease-fire. “Let’s see how it works, that is the precondition in order to increase humanitarian help for the people in Idlib,” he said.