Erdogan threatens to launch ‘migration wave’ against Greece, Europe

Taking a press question in Budapest, where he’s on an official visit, the increasingly volatile Erdogan first referred to “ingratitude” on the part of Athens, taking a cue from a statement by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis this week, who said Turkey is the source of the illegal migration crisis in the region.

“It’s ingratitude (for Greece) to say that Turkey is the source of the problem, when our country hosts roughly five million refugees,” Erdogan said. He was referring to upwards of three million Syrian and Iraqi refugees that fled their strife-plagued countries, where Turkey, however, has an active combat presence, replete with Turkish-occupied enclaves, air strikes and vicious affiliated militia – the latter often described as jihadis and Islamist extremists.

The scenes from the March 2020 witnessed thousands of mostly young males – hailing from North Africa to Pakistan and Afghanistan – assembled across from a Greek border post and repeatedly trying and ultimately failing to enter the EU member-state.
In warning of a repeat of the 2020 incident, the Turkish president added that “if we open our borders, I don’t know what will happen to Greece; what will Greece do? I don’t know, and moreover, Greece is a country that in the Aegean and Mediterranean sinks refugee boats, sentencing them to death.”

The latter remark comes in the wake stepped up efforts by Greece’s coast guard over the past two and a half years to intercept migrant boats and flimsy inflatable craft transporting would-be migrants towards any Greek, and by extension EU territory they can reach, or, to be rescued by Greek and other EU patrols and ferried to any of a bevy of Greek isles.

Mitsotakis directly commented on the matter in a heated exchange with a Dutch reporter/activist this week, saying the Hellenic Coast Guard “intercepts” such craft and then waits for Turkish vessels to come and pick them up, returning them back to Turkish territory, from where they set out.

Athens has repeatedly and now vociferously charged that not only does official Turkey turn a “blind eye” to organized migrant smuggling rings operated on its western shores, but, in fact, has often used its forces to “shepherd” the vessels towards Greek territorial waters.

Speaking with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán by his side, Erdogan also had harsh words for Mitsotakis, saying the latter and his “flunkies pass their time by uttering lies, and not acting honorably, that’s why in this region they don’t generate trust”.

The thin-skinned Turkish president also again aired his annoyance with a heightened US military presence in Greece, especially at the northeast port of Alexandroupolis, charging that “…all of Greece has turned into an American base … unfortunately, Alexandroupolis (which he referred to by the Turkish name Dedeağaç) isn’t one base; all of Greece has turned into an American base. I couldn’t count the number of American bases that exist in Greece. We have a view that all of Greece is a US base.”
He also lamented the fact, as he said, that Washington “has chosen the wrong neighbor for itself; it’s not a correct stance to choose the Aegean as a base in Greece,” adding that he reiterated this opinion in his one and only contact so far with US President Joe Biden.

Greek gov’t reply

In a response only a few hours after Erdogan’s latest inflammatory statement, government spokesman Yannis Economou merely noted that “Greece is a rule of law European country; the country protects its borders, which are the EU borders, and at the same time it saves lives at sea”.

The government spokesman added when threatened by other countries “who exploit desperate people to achieve geopolitical goals, it (Greece) will always reply with determination. That’s what it did in Evros (the area separating the two counties by the same-name river in the Thrace province) in March 2020, with Europe’s support”.