Tensions along Greece’s land border with Turkey have erupted again, barely 48 hours after European Union chiefs visited the region, as thousands of people, reportedly goaded by Turkish authorities, regrouped in the area.
Ankara announced it was deploying 1,000 police special forces along the frontier on Thursday, claiming scores of people had been injured by Greek guards trying to stop them from crossing into the country.
“They wounded 164 people. They tried to push 4,900 back to Turkey,” the country’s interior minister, Süleyman Soylu, told reporters after taking a helicopter tour of the Evros region. “We are deploying 1,000 special force police … to prevent the pushbacks.”
Ankara has accused Athens of resorting to increasingly aggressive measures to deter migrants and refugees from breaching the frontier, following its abrupt decision to no longer abide by a landmark 2016 accord to halt migratory flows to the EU.
In what has become as much a war of words as nerves, the neighbours – both Nato members but longstanding regional rivals – have exchanged barbs over the extent to which force has been used since Turkey declared it was “opening the doors” to Europe.
Earlier this week, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said Greek forces were firing on defenceless migrants trying to enter the EU state and had shot one man dead, an accusation deplored as “fake news” by the centre-right government in Athens.
The deployment of special police comes after the administration of the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, also rushed to reinforce Greece’s land and sea frontiers with elite troops.
