Greek cops fire tear gas at migrants at border with Turkey

KASTANIES (Greece) • Greek police fired tear gas at migrants gathered on its border with Turkey yesterday, as Turkey threatened to allow tens of thousands of refugees fleeing Syria to leave for Europe and warned that Damascus will "pay a price".

Greece, which was a primary gateway for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in 2015 and 2016, reiterated that it would keep out the migrants. "The government will do whatever it takes to protect its borders," said government spokesman Stelios Petsas.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however, vowed yesterday to allow the refugees to travel on to Europe from Turkey, which he said can no longer handle new waves of people fleeing Syria.

"We will not close these doors in the coming period and this will continue. Why? The European Union needs to keep its promises. We don't have to take care of this many refugees, to feed them," he said, referring to a 2016 deal with the EU to stop refugee flows in exchange for billions of euros in aid.

He said funds transferred to Turkey from the EU to support refugees were arriving too slowly.

Turkey started allowing Syrian refugees to cross to Greece via land and sea after Russia-backed Syrian forces in the northern Syria province of Idlib killed 34 Turkish troops on Thursday.

The killings have increased tensions with Russia, which backs the Syrian regime's relentless offensive to take back the remaining chunks of Idlib.

Nato member Turkey backs Syrian rebels and has 12 observation posts in Idlib - several of which have been encircled by regime forces.

In his first comments since the killings, Mr Erdogan said the number of migrants gathered on the Turkish borders with Europe could reach as many as 30,000 yesterday.

Greece's Skai TV aired live video from the Turkish side of the northern land border at Kastanies, showing Greek riot police firing tear-gas rounds at groups of migrants who were hurling stones and shouting obscenities. Kastanies is just over 900km north-east of Athens.

Overnight, demonstrators hurled flaming pieces of wood at police, amateur footage filmed by a police official showed.

Greek police were keeping the media about a kilometre away from the Kastanies border crossing, but the broader area, where the two countries are divided by a river, was more permeable. A group of Afghans with young children waded across fast-moving waters of the Evros river and took refuge in a small chapel. They crossed into Greece on Friday morning.

Greece had already said on Thursday that it would tighten border controls to prevent coronavirus reaching its Aegean islands, where thousands of migrants are living in poor conditions.

Nearly a million refugees and migrants crossed from Turkey to Greece's islands in 2015, setting off a crisis over immigration in Europe, but that route all but closed after the EU and Ankara agreed to stop the flow in March 2016.

Moscow and Ankara traded blame over Thursday's strike in Idlib, the deadliest attack on Turkish forces in nearly 30 years. The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting to try to avert open conflict between Russia and Turkey.

US President Donald Trump, in a phone call with Mr Erdogan, condemned the attack and reaffirmed Washington's support for Ankara's efforts to avert a humanitarian disaster in Syria, the White House said.

The two leaders also said Syria and Russia must halt their offensive in north-west Syria.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described it as "one of the most alarming moments" of the nine-year-old Syrian war. "The most pressing need is an immediate ceasefire before the situation gets entirely out of control," he said.

Inside Syria, a million civilians have been displaced since December near the Turkish border in desperate winter conditions.

Hundreds of migrants began arriving on the European frontier on Friday morning.

At the Pazarkule border post with Greece, refugee Hamid Muhammed said: "We want the Turkish and European governments to open this gate."

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE