Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has announced that after the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak ends, his government will not stop migrants from travelling to the Greek border.
Interior Minister Soyilu said that the government had evacuated an estimated 5,800 migrants from the border area and transported them to nine different Turkish provinces where they will be held in deportation centres until the outbreak ends.
“It was a precautionary move. We had to do it. But no one has yet to feel comfortable with it,” Soyilu said.
According to a report from the Greek newspaper Proto Thema, Soyilu added: “When the coronavirus pandemic is over, we are not going to deter any immigrants who want to return to the Greek-Turkish border in Pazar.”
George Koumoutsakos, the deputy Foreign Minister of Greece, criticised the Turkish minister, saying: “Yesterday’s statements by Soyilu respond to those who still had the slightest doubt that the events in Evros were an aggressive plan to brutally blackmail Greece and Europe with a ‘weapon’ of migrant exploitation.”
