TURKEY CARRIES OUT THREAT TO OPEN BORDER

Turkish border gates are and will remain open for refugees heading to Europe, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday, accusing the European Union of not honoring a 2016 deal under which Turkey bore the brunt of a Syrian refugee crisis.

With tear gas clouding the air, thousands of migrants trying to reach Europe clashed with riot police on the Greek border with Turkey on Saturday morning, signaling a new and potentially volatile phase in the migration crisis.

The scene at Kastanies, a normally quiet Greek border checkpoint into Turkey, rapidly became a tense confrontation with the potential to worsen as dozens of Greek security officers and soldiers fired canisters of tear gas. Riot police with batons, shields and masks confronted the migrants through the wire, yelling at them to stay back.

About 4,000 migrants of various nationalities were pressed against the Turkish side of the border. An additional 500 or so people were trapped between two border posts but still on the Turkish side, at the long and heavily militarized land border that has turned into the flash point of the tug of war between Turkey and Europe.

Erdogan on Saturday said Turkey could no longer handle the numbers fleeing the war in Syria.

“What did we do yesterday?” he said in a televised speech in Istanbul. “We opened the doors.” His comments were his first to acknowledge what he had long threatened to do: push some of the millions of Syrian refugees and other migrants in Turkey toward Europe in order to cajole the European Union to heed Turkey’s demands.

He accused European leaders of not keeping their promises to help Turkey bear the load of millions of Syrian refugees.

Erdogan has also called for European support for his military operations against a Russian and Syrian offensive in northern Syria that has displaced at least 1 million more Syrians toward Turkey’s border.

Erdogan’s comments Saturday came after Turkey suffered heavy losses from Russian or Syrian airstrikes in northwestern Syria on Thursday. The death toll from the strikes has risen to 36, Erdogan said. More than 30 soldiers were wounded in the strikes.

The migrants at the border had heeded Erdogan’s call and rushed to Turkey’s borders with Europe, some on Friday taking free rides on buses organized by Turkish officials. But once at Europe’s doorstep, they were met with a violent crackdown.

Migrants were also heading by sea to the Turkish coast, from where they hope to reach Greek islands, facilitated by Turkish authorities, but officials reported few arrivals Saturday, perhaps because of poor weather at sea.

The mini-exodus was livestreamed by Turkish state television in scenes reminiscent of the 2015 migrant crisis that Europe had solved only with Turkey’s help. Syrians shared information, some joking about the Turkish facilitation, suggesting they should publish the telephone numbers of people smugglers, too.

The International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency, said that as many as 10,000 were making their way through Turkey to the northern land borders in hopes of reaching Europe.

The frontier is heavily militarized on both sides and is closed off with barbed wire only for about 7 miles, running through fields, valleys and forests and partly demarcated by the Evros River and its delta, where migrants have long perished because of choppy waters.

Even if the Greek officials succeed in holding back the hundreds at the small border chokehold in Kastanies, it will be hard to secure the entire border as migrants become dispersed and try their luck farther afield.

Greek guards pledged a standoff for as long as it took into the cold night and beyond.

Greece “came under an illegal, mass and orchestrated attempt to raze our borders and stood up protecting not only our frontiers but those of Europe too,” said Stelios Petsas, the Greek government spokesman. He added that 66 migrants had been arrested crossing the land border illegally, and “none have anything to do with Idlib.”

“Our government is determined to do whatever it takes to protect our borders,” he said.