Greece, Turkey tensions heat up over migrant crisis

KASTANIES - Teargas and smoke bombs clouded a Greek-Turkish land border on Saturday in a fresh flare-up 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.

A Greek government statement issued Saturday said that around 600 people, aided by Turkish army and military police, threw tear gas at the Greek side of the border overnight. There were several attempts to breach the border fence, and fires were lit in an attempt to damage the barrier, the statement said.

Meanwhile hundreds of people could be seen on the Turkish side of the high perimeter fence, with some pushing at it. 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.

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, which already houses more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees, said it would no longer be Europe's gatekeeper, arguing 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.

More migrant camps in Greece

 Greece, which already faces pressure over the presence of thousands of refugees on its shores, has sought to keep out the fresh influx.

Over 1,700 migrants have landed on Lesbos and four other Aegean islands from Turkey over the past week, adding to the 38,000 already crammed into abysmal and overstretched refugee centres. The new surge has ramped up already high tensions on an island that has been the main entry point for migrants trying to enter Europe.

Frustration exploded into violence last weekend with mobs setting up roadblocks, attacking cars carrying NGO workers and beating journalists. 

Nevertheless, Greece said it plans to build two new temporary camps to house hundreds of additional asylum seekers who arrived after a surge enabled by Turkey, the migration minister said Saturday.

"We want to build two closed centres in (the northern region of) Serres and the greater Athens area with 1,000 places," migration minister Notis Mitarachi told Skai TV.

"We need the backing of local communities. We cannot leave all (these) people on the islands," he said. Residents of a Serres town rumoured to host one of the camps staged protests earlier this week and local officials declared their opposition to the plan.

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, and only 4% of those attempting to enter Greece were Syrians, the source said.

"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."

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu rebutted the Greek leader's claims by renewing accusations of Greek authorities mistreating migrants.

“Their masks have fallen. The ruthlessness of those who gave lectures on humanity has become evident," Soylu said.

'Masks have fallen'

Soylu claimed that some 1,000 Turkish special operations police deployed on the border had started to thwart the actions of the law enforcement teams assembled by Greece to drive the migrants back. The minister also predicted that Greece would not be able to “hold on to its borders" during the summer, when the river that delineates most of the Turkey-Greece border gets shallower and easier to cross.

Soylu added that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan instructed Turkish authorities to prevent migrants from attempting to reach the Greek islands in dinghies to avoid “human tragedies." Hundreds have drowned attempting the comparatively short but dangerous voyage over the Aegean Sea from Turkey's coast.

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 ministers called the situation at the Greece-Turkey border unacceptable and said the EU was determined to protect its external boundaries.

The EU on Friday pleaded with migrants on the Turkish border to stop trying to cross into Greece, but also dangled the prospect of more aid for Ankara as the standoff entered a second week.

However, the EU has so far made no firm commitment to up its financial contributions to migrants in Turkey, mostly due to opposition from Greece and Turkish-occupied Cyprus who are against the bloc showing weakness by giving in to Ankara's “blackmail“. 

Erdogan meanwhile has demanded that Europe shoulder more of the burden of caring for refugees. But the EU insists it is abiding by a 2016 deal in which it gave Turkey billions in refugee aid in return for keeping Europe-bound asylum-seekers on its soil. In a phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday, Erdogan said the Turkey-EU migration deal is no longer working and needs to be revised, according to the Turkish leaders's office.

European officials acknowledged Turkey for hosting millions of migrants and refugee, but said the 27-nation EU “strongly rejects Turkey's use of migratory pressure for political purposes." Turkey's move to allow migrants to mass at the Greek border has been interpreted in Europe as an attempt to pressure Western states to support Turkey's geopolitical goals in the Syrian war. The conflict has played a key role in driving the mass movements of refugees in recent years due to the millions of people displaced from their homes.

Erdogan plans to be in Brussels on March 9 for a one-day working visit, his office said. The statement did not specify where he would be during his one-day visit or the nature of the work taking him to the Belgian capital, but the European Union's headquarters are in Brussels.