Greece has installed a 40 km and surveillance system on its border with Turkey, amid concerns about the increase in the number of migrants from Afghanistan.
“We cannot passively wait for the possible impact,” Greek Minister for Citizen Protection Michalis Chrisochoidis said during a visit to the Evros region on Friday (20).
“Our borders will remain inviolable,” he said.
The Greek minister’s comments came as Turkey called on European countries to take responsibility for Afghan migrants, given the crisis encountered after the Taliban took control of the country.
In a telephone conversation with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that a sharp increase in the number of people leaving Afghanistan could present “a serious challenge for everyone”.
“A new wave of migration is inevitable if the necessary measures are not taken in Afghanistan and Iran,” Erdogan said.
The Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan left some citizens fearful for their lives and made them attempt to flee the country, often at all costs.
Greece, which was at the forefront of the migration crisis in 2015 when more than a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East crossed the Turkish border into the European Union, said that it could return all Afghans arriving illegally in the country. .
Of those who arrived in Greece during the migration crisis, many traveled further north through Europe, but around 60,000 remained in the country.
Last year, Athens temporarily blocked further asylum claims after Erdogan said Turkey “opened the doors” for migrants to enter the European Union.
Mitsotakis said at the time that Greece had increased “the level of deterrence at our borders to the maximum” with security personnel deployed at the land border in Evros.