The Greek government fears of another face-off with its Turkish counterpart after Turkey’s foreign minister suggested migrants and refugees go back to Greece’s border as coronavirus lockdowns will soon be lifted by the two countries.
“Due to the pandemic, the movement of migrants has slowed down. But they will definitely want to leave after the outbreak is over,” Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said.
The statement set off alarm bells in Athens, where analysts are increasingly voicing fears of an iteration of the crisis that erupted earlier this year when the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, declared the doors to Europe were open and migrants free to cross into Greece.
After a hiatus of almost three months, Greek authorities reported several boats of men, women and children landing on the shores of Lesbos last week.
Some 37,000 asylum seekers remain on the outposts in vastly overcrowded conditions that have been deplored by human rights groups.
As a precautionary measure against coronavirus, Turkey sealed its north-western land frontier, demarcated by the Evros River in mid-March, but only after weeks of chaos and high drama in which thousands attempted to cross the border amid a hail of rubber bullets and teargas fired by elite forces on either side.
In recent days, there has been renewed tension over moves by Athens to extend a 12.5km-long razor wire fence along the frontier in land disputed by Ankara.
“As the region gradually emerges from coronavirus lockdown, we are seeing a rise in tensions on all fronts,” said Angelos Syrigos, professor of international law at Panteion University and an MP in the governing New Democracy party.
“It is clear Turkey wants to continue weaponising migrants and refugees to extract European support for its geopolitical goals. My worry is that very soon we could see a new border crisis,” he said.
Athens’ centre right government, rallying EU support earlier this year, deployed riot police and military patrols to the land border while dispatching gunships and coastguard vessels to conduct around-the-clock patrols off the Turkish coast.
But Frontex, the EU border agency that is participating in the patrols, has reportedly also predicted that the easing of coronavirus restrictions in Turkey will likely result in thousands of migrants and refugees attempting, once again, to cross into Greece.
In March, the Turkish interior minister, Süleyman Soylu, also warned that Europe-bound migrants would be able to return to the Greek-Turkish land border once the pandemic receded. “When this epidemic is over we would not prevent whoever wants to leave,” he said, after ordering the evacuation of men, women and children from the region.
As home to more than 4 million refugees – more than anywhere else in the world – Turkey has repeatedly threatened to open the gates to Europe, arguing that Brussels has failed to provide adequate funding to host such numbers. Vast majority of these refugees are displaced Syrians. (Source: The Guardian)