Turkish Forces Fire Tear Gas towards Greek Border amid Migrant Tensions

World

March 6th, 9:04am

Asharq Al-Awsat

Greek riot police officers walk amid clouds of tear gas near Turkey's Pazarkule border crossing, in Kastanies, Greece March 6, 2020. (Reuters)

Tension flared at Greece’s mainland border with Turkey early on Friday as volleys of tear gas were fired from the Turkish side of the fence towards Greek border guards. There has been a standoff in the border area of Kastanies since Feb. 28, when Ankara said it would no longer hold back thousands of migrants stuck in that country under a deal brokered with the EU in 2016. A Reuters correspondent saw Greek forces use a water cannon in an attempt to disperse people crowding at the border. It was followed by a volley of tear gas from the other side. “(The) attacks are coordinated by drones. Apart from intimidation, these attacks are taking place from the Turkish police to help migrants cross the fence border line,” a Greek government official said. Turkey has said any tear gas fired is in response to tear gas fired from the Greek side. “Why would Turkey fire tear gas to the Greek side of the border?” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters after visiting the border area on Thursday. “Greece is firing tear gas at us, they are firing tear gas at our police stations at the border. We are responding to that.” Both sides used tear gas at the Kastanies border post on Wednesday. Ankara has accused Greek forces of shooting dead four migrants, a charge rejected by Athens, which says Turkish forces are helping the migrants to cross the border. Athens has called the confrontations a threat to national security and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis brought European Union leaders to the area to press his case for support to avoid a repeat of 2015, when tens of thousands of asylum seekers poured into the European Union. Thousands of refugees and other migrants have been trying to get into Greece through the country’s eastern land and sea borders over the past week, after Turkey declared its previously guarded borders with Europe were open. Many have been camping out near the border on the Turkish side, hoping to cross despite Greek insistence that its border is closed. Reporters were being kept away from the border area on the Turkish side, but saw at least one bus full of people leaving the area Friday morning. It was unclear where the bus was headed. After months of threats, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country would 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 for care in return for Turkey keeping the refugees on its soil. His decision and its aftermath on the border with Greece have alarmed governments in Europe, which is still seeing political fallout from mass migration that started five years ago. European Union governments will consider on Friday whether to provide more money for migrants in Turkey, but will not accept that refugees are used as a bargaining tool, the EU’s top diplomat said. “We are going to discuss it,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, told reporters in the Croatian capital before chairing a meeting of EU foreign ministers. “Turkey has a big burden ... and we have to understand that. But at the same time, we cannot accept that migrants are being used as a source of pressure,” he said, referring to Ankara’s decision to open its border with Greece. Erdogan's move came amid a Syrian regime offensive in Syria’s northwestern 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. A ceasefire in Idlib brokered by Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday went into effect at midnight. Opposition activists and a war monitor reported a complete absence of Russian and Syrian regime warplanes in the skies of Idlib and a relative calm in the area. It was not clear whether the agreement would also affect the situation on the Turkish-Greek border. On the Greek side of the border, authorities were using locals with better knowledge of the terrain to apprehend those who manage to cross, either by cutting holes in the border fence or by crossing the Evros river — Meric in Turkish — that runs along most of the border. “We were born here, we live here, we work here, we know the crossings better than anyone,” said Panayiotis Ageladarakis, head of the community of the border village of Amorio. “We sit on the crossings and they come. We arrest most of them, meaning we keep them there, we call the police and the police come and arrest them. Then it's a matter for the police, we aren't interested in where they take them,” he said.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2165871/turkish-forces-fire-tear-gas-towards-greek-border-amid-migrant-tensions