Turkey announced on Thursday that it is deploying 1,000 special police forces along its border with Greece in a move it to halt — as it claims — the pushback of migrants toward its territory.
Speaking to reporters in the northwestern border province of Edirne, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu claimed that Greek police had wounded the scores of migrants trying to cross the border.
“They wounded 164 people. They tried to push 4,900 people back to Turkey,” he said. “We are deploying 1,000 special force police to the border system… to prevent the push-back.”
Greece has maintained that reports of Greek forces opening fire at migrants and asylum seekers are “fake news” and constitute part of the orchestrated propaganda program launched by Ankara to sway public opinion.
Government spokesman Stelios Petsas wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that “The Turkish side creates and disperses fake news targeted against Greece. Today they created yet another such falsehood, with injured migrants and one dead supposedly by Greek fire. I categorically deny it.”
The new migrant crisis follows Turkey’s decision to no longer abide by a 2016 deal with the European Union to halt illegal migration to Europe in return for billions of euros in aid.
Since then, thousands of migrants have rushed to the Turkish border with Greece in hopes of crossing into Europe.
Greece says that the migrants are being “manipulated as pawns” by Turkey in an attempt to exert diplomatic pressure. It increased security measures and halted all asylum claims from migrants who had entered Greece illegally for one month.
Since Saturday Greek forces have prevented 32,423 migrants from coming into the country illegally and arrested 231 individuals.
Greek authorities announced that 4,600 attempts to enter Greece illegally were stopped in just the span of 12 hours on Wednesday.
In a statement on Wednesday the European Council accused Turkey of using migrants for political purposes and it called on the country to abide by the 2016 deal.
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