Turkey yesterday vowed that the Syrian regime will “pay a price” for dozens of dead Turkish soldiers and raised pressure on the EU over the conflict by threatening to let thousands of migrants enter the bloc.
Turkey and Russia, which back opposing forces in the Syria conflict, held high-level talks to try to defuse tensions that have sparked fears of a broader war and a new migration crisis for Europe.
Greek police clashed with thousands of migrants who were already gathering on the border to try to enter Europe.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to allow refugees to travel on to Europe from Turkey, which he said can no longer handle new waves of people fleeing war-torn Syria.
It already hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees.
The comments were his first after 34 Turkish troops were killed since Thursday in the northern Syria province of Idlib, where Moscow-backed Syrian regime forces are battling to retake the last rebel holdout area.
“What did we do yesterday [Friday]? We opened the doors,” Erdogan said in Istanbul. “We will not close those doors... Why? Because the European Union should keep its promises.”
He was referring to a 2016 deal with the EU to stop refugee flows in exchange for billions of euros in aid.
In Athens, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis held an emergency meeting to discuss tensions on the border with Turkey.
The Turkish leader said 18,000 migrants have amassed on the Turkish borders with Europe since Friday, adding that the number could reach as many as 30,000 yesterday.
Thousands of migrants who remained stuck on the Turkish-Greek border were in skirmishes with Greek police, who fired tear gas to push them back, according to an Agence France-Presse photographer in the western Turkish province of Edirne.
The migrants massed at the Pazarkule border crossing responded by hurling stones at the police.
In 2015, Greece became the main EU entry point for 1 million migrants, most of them refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war. The pressure to cope with the influx split the EU.
“Greece yesterday came under an organized, mass, illegal attack ... a violation of our borders and endured it,” government spokesman Stelios Petsas said after the emergency meeting with Mitsotakis. “We averted more than 4,000 attempts of illegal entrance to our land borders.”
A Greek police source said security forces fired tear gas against migrants massing on the Turkish side, because the migrants had set fires and opened holes in the border fences.
Armed policemen and soldiers are patrolling the Evros River shores — a common crossing point — and are warning with loudspeakers not to enter Greek territory.
Greek authorities were also using drones to monitor the migrants moves.
Greek Minister of Defense Nikos Panagiotopoulos told Skai television the situation was under control
“I believe that the borders have been protected,” he said.
From early Friday to early yesterday 180 migrants reached the islands of Eastern Aegean, Lesbos and Samos in sea crossings, the Greek coast guard said.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS