Greek-Turkish cooperation at Evros border
Although Turkey’s leadership is persisting with its strong rhetoric aimed at Greece regarding the migration issue, the facts on the ground indicate a tendency toward cooperation.
Ankara has not refrained from exploiting the shipwreck last week off the southern coast of Greece, in an attempt to project the image it has been cultivating in recent years as a defender of the rights of persecuted Muslims.
However, in a move that is noteworthy from a diplomatic point of view, it is the Turkish Armed Forces and not the Turkish police authorities that have helped to decongest Evros border region of migrants.
The latest example recorded by the Greek authorities was the removal, with the help of drones, of 110 more migrants who had been found on an island in Marasia (north of Kastanies) in the Evros River. Turkish Armed Forces escorted the migrants from Marasia to Kastanies to islets located on the Turkish side of Evros rather than the larger one a little further south, which is Greek. Similar collaboration occurred in the same location around two weeks ago. At the same time there is direct communication between the foreign ministries of Greece and Turkey.
On the rhetorical level, however, on the occasion of Tuesday’s World Refugee Day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took the opportunity to take a swipe at Greece in a message punctuated with the familiar anti-Western narratives, referring to a rise in Islamophobia, xenophobia and neo-Nazism in the West.
Erdogan said, among other things, that “the arrogant mentality, which has its roots in colonialism, has contributed greatly to the transformation of the Mediterranean, which has been a cradle of civilizations throughout history, into a giant refugee graveyard in recent years.” “Last week’s humanitarian tragedy in the Aegean, where hundreds of innocent people, mostly children, lost their lives, is the latest shameful example,” he said, with Turkish far-right leader Devlet Bahceli saying the Greek government must be held accountable.
