Greece tries to extend Turkey border wall as countries swap insults

The 25-mile border fence could be extended a further 50 miles, but Athens is seeking funding at a time when it has fallen out with its neighbour again

Part of the border wall near the village of Poros, at the Greek-Turkish border (AP)

Greek authorities say they have requested European Union funding to extend the steel fence that runs along Greece’s land border with Turkey, with construction work set to kick off later this year.

What was set up in March 2020 as a 25-mile fence with surveillance cameras, intended to stop asylum seekers from entering the country, is expected to be extended a further 50 miles.

“It is a government decision to extend the border wall further, and we have requested European funding,” migration affairs minister Notis Mitarachi said in a radio interview this week.

Over the years, Greece has repeatedly been criticised for its harsh stance on migrants, with aid groups such as Refugees International accusing the government of a “years-long effort to deter, deny, and disregard asylum seekers and refugees”.

But as an entry point into Europe, Greece has been forced to cope with large numbers of desperate people reaching the EU, without as much help as it would have liked from Brussels. Greece has also accused Nato ally Turkey of “instrumentalising” migration as a way of maintaining a hold over EU countries.

Turkey also reinforced its border in August 2021 after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, and continues its efforts to do so.

“We want to show the whole world that our borders are unpassable,” Mehmet Emin Bilmez, governor of the eastern border province of Van, told Reuters last year. “Our biggest hope is that there is no migrant wave from Afghanistan.”

According to the International Rescue Committee, more than 2,000 people have crossed the Evros border into Greece since the beginning of the year. Another 1,938 have made the dangerous crossing by sea.

Last month, Greek rescue workers and border force personnel saved 27 migrants from a small island in the Evros river.

A few weeks earlier, in late March, a group of 34 asylum seekers, including a pregnant woman, were evacuated from an island on the river following a two-day wait.

At the time, the Border Violence Monitoring Network, a group of organisations documenting illegal border pushbacks, issued a desperate plea for the Greek government to help the stranded people.

“They cannot stay another night in the cold! Despite being informed for 24+ hours, Greek authorities & Frontex remain inactive,” the organisation said in a statement.

In 2020, before the fence was erected, the Greek government fortified Evros with two fast-response teams of 30 men each, tasked with patrolling the Greek-Turkish border and preventing migrants from entering Greece as well as tracking down smuggler rings.

In 2021, 11 other countries also requested EU funding for border walls, but none have received any help thus far: the EU commission does not pay for wall constructions at its external borders.

The request to increase the length of the wall comes against the backdrop of a rapid deterioration in relations between Turkey and Greece.

On Wednesday, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said his country was halting talks with Greece, in part over a dispute with the Greek prime minister and what Ankara calls airspace violations, marking the latest reversal in the difficult relationship between the neighbouring countries.

Last year, after a five-year hiatus, the two Nato members resumed talks aimed at addressing their differences over the Mediterranean Sea and other bilateral issues. But the discussions have made little progress, and the countries have frequently traded insults.

Mr Erdogan said Turkey had cancelled a bilateral cooperation platform, dubbed the High-Level Strategic Council, adding in a speech given to lawmakers from his ruling party that Ankara wanted foreign policy that “had strong character”.

“You keep putting on shows for us with your planes,” Mr Erdogan said, referring to a dispute about airspace over some islands in the Aegean Sea. “What are you doing? Pull yourself together. Do you not learn lessons from history?

Migrants on the Turkish side of the border near Kastanies (AFP via Getty)

“Don’t try to dance with Turkey. You’ll get tired and stuck on the road. We are no longer holding bilateral talks with them. This Greece will not see reason,” he said.

Tensions flared last week when Mr Erdogan said that Greece’s prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, “no longer exists” for him, accusing the Greek leader of trying to block sales of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey during a visit to the United States.

On Tuesday, Mitsotakis told reporters after a European Union summit that he had briefed his EU counterparts over Turkey’s “aggressiveness” and “provocations which cannot be tolerated by Greece or the European Union”.

“I will not be involved in a game of personal insults,” he said.