EU foreign affairs chief calls on countries involved in Greek-Turkey standoff to stop this game
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Migrants attempting to get into Europe need to know the border between Turkey and Greece is closed, the EU’s foreign affairs chief has said, as he called on countries involved in the dispute to “stop this game”, Euronews reports.
This came after Greek and Turkish security forces again deployed tear gas on Friday, witnesses said, sending plumes of smoke above the Kastanies-Pazarkule border crossing. Some migrants dabbed stinging eyes with water. Other trekked through fields probing for chinks in the well-guarded frontier.
“The news about the alleged openness (of the Greek-Turkish border) is false and people should not try to move there,” the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, told reporters. EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell spoke alongside his Croatian counterpart Gordan Grlić-Radman at a press briefing, following a Foreign Affairs Council meeting on Syria, held in Croatia.
The EU could offer more money beyond the 6 billion euros ($6.79 billion) pledged in 2016 to help the refugees but Turkey must first stop using them as a “bargaining chip”, he said.
Meanwhile a Danish patrol boat monitoring the Aegean sea refused an order to push back migrants they rescued, Danish officials told public broadcaster DR.
The Danish boat was patrolling the sea between Turkey and Greece’s easternmost islands as part of Operation Poseidon, a border surveillance mission in support of Greece, coordinated by EU border protection agency Frontex, according to POLITICO.
