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Greek police checkpoint on the Evros river
Photo: Byron Smith / Getty Images
The Greek General Staff (GEETHA) decided on Friday at an extraordinary meeting to raise the level of alert for the sea and land borders with Turkey. This was reported by the daily newspaper »Kathimerini«. The occasion was an indirect threat from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the lecture. "I don't know what Greece would do if we opened the gates," he said at a joint press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, referring to the migration problem.
The Greek General Staff decided to intensify border surveillance and to report incidents immediately that indicate an increase in illegal migration.
Athens had previously sharply criticized Erdoğan's statement.
"If Greece is threatened by countries that use desperate people to achieve geopolitical goals, we will always react decisively," said government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou.
The background to this is the Evros crisis: In February 2020 Erdoğan unilaterally declared the Turkish border along the Evros River to northeast Greece to be open, whereupon thousands of people wanted to make their way to the EU.
Greek security forces prevented most of the crossings at the time, and the EU sent officials from the European border protection agency Frontex.
Erdoğan accuses Greece of destroying boats
At the press conference, Erdoğan also accused Greece of deliberately destroying boats carrying refugees in the Aegean Sea, thereby causing them to sink.
Turkey has evidence of this, he said.
The Greek government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou then declared that Greece is a constitutional state, protects its borders and those of the EU and saves lives at sea.
Greece and Turkey regularly accuse each other of not complying with the refugee agreement between the EU and Ankara.
It was closed in March 2016 and provides for Turkey to limit the number of immigrants entering the EU through its territory.
In return, Turkey receives billions in EU financial aid.
mfh / dpa