The UN has said 13,000 people have gathered to cross into Greece from Turkey following President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s vow to keep open his western borders for migrants and refugees seeking to travel into the EU.
With the crisis escalating, Greece’s prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, called a meeting of his national security council for Sunday evening. The EU’s border protection agency, Frontex, said it was on “high alert” and had deployed extra support to Greece.
“We … have raised the alert level for all borders with Turkey to high,” a spokeswoman said. “We have received a request from Greece for additional support. We have already taken steps to redeploy to Greece technical equipment and additional officers.”
Erdoğan opened his western border on Thursday evening after an airstrike on Thursday night in Syria’s Idlib province killed at least 33 Turkish soldiers recently deployed to support the Syrian opposition.
The Turkish president has repeatedly said he will break his country’s deal with the EU to prevent movements of migrants into the bloc unless he received greater support for his intervention in Syria.
On Sunday, the UN’s international organisation for migration said that by the previous evening at least 13,000 people had gathered at the formal border crossing points at Pazarkule and Ipsala, among others, in groups of between several dozen and more than 3,000.
Erdoğan said in a speech on Saturday he had no intention of rethinking his decision. “What did we say? If this continues, we will be forced to open the doors,” he told a meeting of the ruling Justice and Development party.
“They did not believe what we said. What did we do yesterday? We opened our border. The number of people crossing the doors to Europe reached around 18,000 until Saturday morning, but today the number can reach 25- or even 30,000, and we will not close the passages during the period to come.”
The EU has said it expects Ankara to abide by a €6bn (£5.2bn) deal to stem migration to its member states. Under the 2016 agreement, Turkey agreed to halt the flow of people to the EU in return for funds. Turkey has about 3.6 million refugees from Syria.
The European council president, Charles Michel, spoke to Erdoğan on Saturday. “The EU is actively engaged to uphold the EU-Turkey Statement and to support Greece and Bulgaria to protect the EU’s external borders”, a statement issued by the EU leader said.
Greek security forces had fired teargas and stun grenades on Saturday to block more than 4,000 people at the crossing in Kastanies.
Greece’s deputy Defense minister, Alkiviadis Stefanis, told the local broadcaster Skai there were about 9,600 attempts to illegally cross on Saturday evening.
More than 500 migrants reached Greece’s eastern Aegean islands of Lesbos, Samos and Chios on Sunday. At least seven vessels with more than 300 migrants onboard had reached Lesbos, an official said. A further 150 migrants had reached Samos.
