ISTANBUL: Ankara denied involvement in an incident where Greece found 92 illegal migrants close to its northern border with Turkiye, Turkish Deputy Interior Minister Ismail Catakli said late on Saturday.
“As you couldn’t find one single case of a human rights violation by Turkiye, you just seek to expose the image of your own cruelty as if Turkiye did it,” Catakli said on Twitter replying to a tweet by Notis Mitarachi, Greek Minister of Migration.
Greek police said on Saturday that they had rescued a group of 92 migrants who were discovered naked and believed to have crossed into Greek territory from Turkiye illegally.
Catakli also called on Greece to stop “manipulation and dishonesty”.
Greece’s Citizen Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos said on Sunday that migrants’ accounts suggested that they had been taken to Greece by the Turkish military police.
“One would expect a working explanation from the Turkish government’s side,” he told a Greek television station. Greece has urged Turkiye to respect a 2016 deal with the European Union in which Ankara agreed to contain the flow of migrants to Europe in exchange for billions of euros in aid.
Turkiye says it has strengthened measures to prevent people smuggling.
Athens will soon extend a 40-kilometre fence along its northern border with Turkiye to prevent migrants from entering the country, Theodorikakos said.
Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2022
