Teargas fired on Greek-turkish border as migrant tensions flare
Erdogan ordered Turkish coastguard to stop migrants from making risky Aegean sea crossings, as fresh clashes erupted pitting migrants against Greek border police
Teargas and smoke bombs clouded a GreekTurkish land border on Saturday in a fresh flareup in tensions over migrants seeking access to European Union territory.
A Reuters correspondent in the area said the projectiles were coming from Turkish territory and being fired towards Greek police near the crossing at Kastanies. Some tear gas was also being fired by Greek police.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the Turkish coastguard to stop migrants from making risky Aegean sea crossings, as fresh clashes erupted Saturday pitting migrants against Greek border police.
Thousands of migrants have massed on the land border with Greece after Erdogan said last week that Turkey would not prevent migrants from leaving for EU territory, sparking violence and an escalating row between Ankara and Brussels.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people could be seen on the Turkish side of the high perimeter fence, with some pushing at it.
Thousands of migrants have been trying to get into Greece, an EU member state, since
Turkey said on Feb. 28 it would no longer try to keep them on its territory as agreed in 2016 with the EU in return for billions of euros in aid.
Turkey argued it could no longer contain the hundreds of thousands of migrants it hosts, or the likelihood of more refugees on the way from intensified fighting in northwestern Syria, but Greece has sought to keep out the fresh influx.
Greek soldiers and riot police have been manning the borderland, as thousands of migrants have made a rush for the frontier in recent days. Their Turkish counterparts have been stationed on the other side.
Greek officials say authorities have thwarted thousands of attempts by migrants to cross in the past eight days.
Over a 24-hour period by Saturday morning, there were more than 1,200 attempts to cross and 27 arrests, a government source said. Most of the migrants were from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“Greece is doing what every sovereign state has the right to do, to protect its border from any illegal crossings,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told the CNN network on Friday night.
“I’m afraid this is a constant and very systematic provocation on Turkey’s behalf which has nothing to do with the plight of these people. They are being used by Turkey.”
Heavy machinery was moved to the border crossing area on the Greek side on Saturday morning and a bulldozer was seen digging embankments close to Kastanies.
Turkey on Friday accused the European Union of using migrants as political tools and allowing international law to be “trampled,” after EU foreign ministers said they would work to stop illegal migration into the bloc.
The EU on Friday pleaded with migrants on the Turkish border to stop trying to cross into Greece but dangled the prospect of more aid for Ankara as the standoff entered a second week.
Turkey and the European Union have traded accusations, with Ankara telling Brussels to implement a 2016 migration deal, and the bloc claiming Ankara was using the migrants as political pawns.
During a tense hours-long stand-off on Saturday, Greek police used tear gas and water cannons on migrants trying to break fences in the border province of Edirne, according to AFP journalists at the scene.
The migrants responded by throwing stones and also shouted “Open the gates.”
Turkish security forces also responded by using tear gas.
Many migrants have been stranded in biting cold for days at the Pazarkule border, known as Kastanies on the Greek side.
The Turkish coastguard said 97 migrants were rescued on Thursday after “the Greek side flattened three boats and left them in a halfsinking state in the middle of the (Aegean) sea.”
Greek authorities deny using force or acting illegally.
“We have not used any sort of excessive force and we’re always reacting, we’re never initiating, in terms of responding to the provocations that have taken place on the border,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told CNN.
He also accused Ankara of helping people, both at land and at sea, to cross into Greece.