The borders of Greece will be defended, the Minister of Citizen Protection has declared, as Greece announced the completion of a 41-kilometre (25-mile) border barrier along the Turkish frontier.
Amid growing concern of an impending migrant crisis after President Joe Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, Greece has vowed to keep any new waves of foreigners from penetrating into Europe.
Speaking to reporters at the site of the border wall in Evros, Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrysochoidis said, per Kathimerini: “It is our decision — and this is the order of the Prime Minister that we are conveying today to the officers of the Armed Forces and the Greek Police and to the local bodies — to defend our borders. Our borders will remain secure and inviolable.”
He added that the country would not “allow unauthorized and erratic movements and we will not allow any attempt to violate them.”
Minister of Defense Nikos Panayotopoulos said that Greece cannot wait around for the “possible consequences” of increased migratory flows from the destabilised Afghanistan.
Mr Chrysochoidis said that on top of the 40km border fence, Greece has implemented an “extremely technologically advanced” surveillance system to further prevent migrants from crossing the Turkish border at Evros.
Turkey’s Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who in large part controls the flow of migrants into Europe — warned Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in a phone call that there could be a drastic increase of migration from Afghanistan, which he said would pose “a serious challenge for everyone”.
“A new wave of migration is inevitable if the necessary measures are not taken in Afghanistan and in Iran,” Mr Erdogan said per the BBC.
Greece, which was at the forefront of the 2015 European Migrant Crisis, saw nearly one million migrants pass through its borders, with approximately 60,000 remaining in the country to this day, many concentrated in islands where the local population has been overwhelmed by the new arrivals.
On Tuesday, Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis vowed that the country will not allow a repeat of the migrant crisis, saying: “We are clearly saying that we will not and cannot be the gateway of Europe for the refugees and migrants who could try to come to the European Union.
“We cannot have millions of people leaving Afghanistan and coming to the European Union… and certainly not through Greece.”
However, earlier this month, the leading German humanitarian worker Sybille Schnehage predicted that as many as three million migrants from Afghanistan. The numbers would represent twice as many migrants which came during the 2015 crisis.
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron also warned of a new wave of migration following the fall of the Afghan government to the Taliban, calling on European leaders to protect “against significant irregular migratory flows”.
Other European nations, such as Hungary, Poland, and Lithuania have all erected border walls or fences in order to deter illegal migration.
Earlier this month, Lithuania’s parliament voted last week to erect a fence with Belarus. In an exclusive interview with Breitbart London, MP Dovilė Šakalienė said: “We have to protect ourselves because this is the border of democracy. Our eastern border is the end of the EU and the end of democracy.”
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