Greek coastguards had been filmed pushing away a dinghy with poles and opening fire into water in an effort to block migrants from entering the country. Thousands of people have been trying to enter Greece by land and by sea after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced Turkey would no longer stop migrants from crossing into Europe through the Turkish-Greek border
Continue reading...Category Archives: Turkey
Four years after Turkey deal, EU no closer to new asylum system
Distracted leaders have been unable to agree on how to ease the burden on frontline states
It was said to be the moment when the European Union lost its political innocence. Nearly four years ago, in March 2016, EU leaders signed a deal with Turkey aimed at preventing asylum seekers from travelling to Europe.
The pact was “celebrated by people who are dancing on the grave of refugee protection”, said the Europe boss of Amnesty International. But the realpolitik worked: the number of people arriving on the Greek islands from Turkey dropped drastically from a peak of 7,000 a day to a few hundred, although numbers began creeping up again in 2019.
Continue reading...Child dies off Lesbos in first fatality since Turkey opened border
Four-year-old dies as crisis sparked by Turkey’s decision to open its borders continues
The first victim of the worsening crisis that has engulfed Greece following Turkey’s abrupt decision to open its borders to thousands of refugees desperate to reach Europe has been confirmed with the death of a child in waters off Lesbos.
Authorities said a four-year-old Syria boy died early on Monday when an inflatable dinghy carrying people from the Turkish coast capsized off the island. “Doctors rushed to save the child but it was too late,” a police source on Lesbos said.
Continue reading...Clashes as thousands gather at Turkish border to enter Greece
EU border agency Frontex on high alert as Turkish president keeps crossings open
Migrants trying to reach Europe have clashed violently with Greek riot police as Turkey claimed more than 76,000 people were now heading for the EU as a result of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision to open the Turkish side of the border.
Officers fired teargas at the migrants, some of whom threw stones and wielded metal bars as they sought to force their way into Greece at the normally quiet crossing in the north-eastern town of Kastanies.
Continue reading...Erdoğan says border will stay open as Greece tries to repel influx
Turkish leader claims 18,000 people have crossed into EU but some are met with teargas
Thousands of migrants may be in no man’s land between Turkey and Greece after Ankara opened its western borders, sparking chaotic scenes as Greek troops attempted to prevent refugees from entering Europe en masse.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, claimed 18,000 migrants had crossed the border, without immediately providing supporting evidence, but many appear to have been repelled by Greek border patrols firing teargas and stun grenades.
Continue reading...Refugees arrive on Lesbos as Turkey opens border – video
Three boats of refugees have landed on Lesbos in the last 24 hours as the island prepares for an influx of people after Turkey announced it was opening its borders. Meanwhile, thousands of people gathered in the Turkish city of Edirne, which borders Bulgaria and Greece
Continue reading...Refugees in Istanbul rush to board coach to reach Turkish border to Europe – video
Dozens of Syrian refugees were seen rushing to board coaches in Turkey's Istanbul on Friday after Ankara decided to open its border to Europe. The move comes after an airstrike on Thursday killed at least 33 Turkish soldiers in Syria's Idlib province. Fearing the window to leave Turkey would soon close, some of the 3.6 million Syrians living in the country have begun to vacate
- Greece and Bulgaria crack down on Turkish borders as refugees arrive
- Nato expresses 'full solidarity' with Turkey over Syria airstrikes
Russia and Turkey’s next moves will define the Syrian war’s end
Neither side can back down from proxy standoff, but Russia holds whip hand in Idlib
For more than three years, Russia and Turkey have been shadow boxing on the soils of northern Syria. In the past three weeks, the stalking has turned to shooting; the Turks aiming their guns at the Moscow-allied Assad regime, and the Russians increasingly swinging their turrets towards the Turkish military.
In a war fought largely through proxies, any direct conflict between main players was considered highly dangerous and, until Thursday night, unlikely. But after the deaths of at least 30 Turkish troops – most likely the consequence of a Russian airstrike – both sides are in a standoff from which neither can afford to back down.
Continue reading...Greece and Bulgaria crack down on Turkish borders as refugees arrive
Move appears designed to put pressure on Europe to support Turkey’s Idlib operation
Hundreds of refugees in Turkey began arriving at the country’s borders with Greece and Bulgaria on Friday after Ankara suddenly indicated it would no longer block their passage to Europe.
The move prompted both neighbouring nations to shore up their borders as their governments insisted they would not allow anyone to enter. Greek police used smoke grenades at one border crossing, while Bulgaria sent an extra 1,000 troops to its frontier with Turkey.
Continue reading...Syria: 21 dead as targets including schools and nurseries bombed in Idlib
Six schools and two nurseries reported targets of airstrikes by Assad regime and Russia
Eight school facilities have been bombed in Idlib province, in Syria, in a single day as the battle for control of the country’s last opposition stronghold intensifies.
The attacks came despite warnings that the violence has already led to the worst humanitarian crisis in the Syrian war to date.
Continue reading...Idlib’s despair won’t end bloodshed in Syria. It will provoke a rebel fightback | Hassan Hassan
Freed from the need to defend their last stronghold, the jihadists there will be well placed to regroup and take the struggle underground
Outsiders can be forgiven for being tired of the Syrian conflict. After all, the violence has lasted for nearly a decade and the worst chapters – for outsiders, at least – have come and gone: Islamic State (Isis) seized almost half the country, in addition to one-third of Iraq and launched a global network of terror in 2014. But the world has now caught its breath and the threat has all but ended. Refugees, too, flooded Europe some years ago but the influx has been contained.
Also, expert warnings about a resurgence of violence or extremism did not materialise and the return of state control seems to be the steady trajectory of the conflict despite persistent problems. Most of the country is currently under the control of either the regime, Turkey or the United States-backed Kurdish forces in eastern Syria. Even in the Kurdish zone, many would concede that it might be just a matter of time before these areas are recaptured by Damascus, even without much fighting, if and when the US eventually ends its presence there.
Continue reading...Gezi park verdict may be mere political ploy of isolated Ankara
Acquittals are welcome but not necessarily a signal of change at heart of government
One defendant in the Gezi park trial grimly predicted the expected results of Tuesday’s hearing would be the “funeral of civil society in Turkey”. But a surprise verdict led to applause and tears of joy as nine of the activists charged with terrorism offences for their alleged roles in organising the 2013 protests walked free from the Istanbul courthouse.
The unexpected acquittals of nine of the 16 defendants – lawyers say not guilty verdicts for the seven others being tried in absentia are also expected if they return to the country – were a rare spot of good news in Turkey, where the judicial system has been hollowed out and weaponised against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s opponents and critics.
Continue reading...Syrian father teaches daughter to cope with shelling noise through laughter – video
In video posted on social media, Abdullah Mohammad and his daughter Salwa, three, can be heard laughing at the sound of shelling in Syria. Mohammad, who moved his family from Idlib to Sarmada district, has tried to insulate his daughter from trauma by telling her the noise of bombs is part of a game. In September 2018, Turkey and Russia agreed to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression are prohibited, but since then more than 1,800 civilians have been killed in attacks by the Assad regime and Russian forces
Continue reading...Turkish Gezi park activists acquitted of terror charges in surprise ruling
Arrest warrants lifted for seven other defendants being tried over nationwide protests
A Turkish court has acquitted nine activists accused of terror charges over their alleged involvement in Istanbul’s Gezi park protests, a landmark ruling in a case that has given new hope to Turkey’s beleaguered civil society in a country where many fear the rule of law is being steadily eroded.
Applause erupted in the courtroom and some people cried in disbelief when the decision was announced at a courthouse near the Silivri maximum security prison campus, on the outskirts of Istanbul, on Tuesday.
Continue reading...‘Westlessness’: is the west really in a state of peril?
Top diplomats disagreed over the global relevance of the west at the Munich security conference
The chosen theme of the Munich security conference – once a party for Nato and now a Davos for the world’s diplomats – was “westlessness”. The organisers wanted to capture the fear that the west is now so divided and challenged by the rise of China its whole existence has become imperilled.
It was not a concept that won universal acclaim. Margrethe Vestager, the EU vice-president, hit back in one session: “I never thought about ’westlessness’ before. Are we here discussing our own depression and asking the rest of the world to join in as a sort of collective mindfulness exercise? I don’t really don’t get this.” European values – the rule of law and the integrity of the individual – had spread across the world, she insisted.
Continue reading...Greece’s refugee plan is inhumane and doomed to fail. The EU must step in | Apostolis Fotiadis
The government wants to create massive detention centres, but this is being resisted by locals and refugees alike
Since the start of the year, Greece’s reception system for migrants has imploded. A spike of arrivals over the past few months, caused by Turkey’s police operations removing refugees and asylum seekers from its western coastal cities and sending them back to the regions where they were registered, has pushed the existing accommodation to its limits.
Between September 2019 and January 2020, the Greek government transferred 14,750 people from the islands to the mainland, as 36,000 new arrivals crossed the Aegean to Greece from Turkey. While the system is unable to absorb any more people, efforts to establish additional camps in the mainland and new detention centres on the islands have met strong resistance from local communities.
Continue reading...Families trapped by Assad’s assault on Idlib fight to survive in the snow
Vast numbers of people are caught between regime bombings and closed Turkish border
Hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of them women and children, are stranded with little food or shelter in sub-zero temperatures in north-western Syria, forced from their homes by a Russian-backed military offensive that has often targeted hospitals and other civilian infrastructure.
The assault on Idlib, the last stronghold of the Syrian opposition, has created one of the greatest humanitarian crises of a long and brutal war. It has displaced more than 800,000 people since December, the United Nations said, 143,000 of them in the last three days alone.
Continue reading...The Guardian view on Idlib: nowhere left to run | Editorial
Hundreds of thousands of civilians are fleeing a renewed assault by the Syrian regime, in desperate circumstances. Is anyone paying attention?
After the torture and massacre of civilians, after the targeted attacks upon rescuers, doctors and schools, after the barrel bombs and chemical weapons, it should be hard to believe that there could be a new wave of misery for Syria unleashed by Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers. Yet here it is. The assault on Idlib, the last rebel-held enclave, is the largest-scale humanitarian catastrophe of a war now in its ninth year. The United Nations has warned that 832,000 people, most of them children, have been displaced in less than three months; 100,000 people have fled in the past week. Many had already fled the Syrian regime’s murderous assaults before, in some cases three or four times; the province’s population has swelled from 1 million to 3 million since the war broke out. They face sub-zero temperatures, and many don’t even have tents in which to shelter. Doctors report children dying of exposure.
Conditions are likely to worsen. The frontlines are approaching Idlib city, probably sending further waves of families towards the closed Turkish border. Fighting has claimed the lives of both Turkish and Syrian troops, prompting the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to move in reinforcements and threaten: “In the event of the tiniest harm to our soldiers … we will hit regime forces in Idlib and anywhere else.”
Continue reading...Syrian forces capture new areas from insurgents
Turkey sends in more troops to back rebels as weeks-long offensive displaces 600,000
Syrian government forces have captured new areas from insurgents in their offensive in the north-west, as Turkey sends more reinforcements into the country, state media and opposition activists said.
The weeks-long government offensive has created a humanitarian crisis with about 600,000 people having fled their homes in Syria’s last rebel stronghold since the beginning of December, according to the United Nations.
Continue reading...Turkish Cypriot leader warns Cyprus is facing permanent partition
Mustafa Akıncı says differences between island’s two sides are growing more entrenched
The president of Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus has warned the Mediterranean island faces permanent partition of its Greek and Turkish communities unless an agreement is swiftly reached involving an “equitable” federal solution.
In an interview with the Guardian, Mustafa Akıncı said the differences between the two sides were growing more entrenched every year, diminishing the prospect of reunification. “We need to hurry up. After all these years we have come to a crossroads, a decisive moment,” he said.
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