Greece seeks further cooperation with Türkiye against migrant smugglers

ATHENS

Greece plans to ask neighboring Türkiye to crack down harder and deepen their cooperation on gangs trafficking would-be asylum seekers, a senior migration official has said.

"We are not doing enough about migrant smugglers. We are raising the issue with our European peers and our Turkish neighbors," the Greek official told AFP speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The cooperation which we intend to intensify with Türkiye will focus on the war against smuggling networks," the source added.

Migration Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos is expected to discuss the issue with Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya in November.

Last month, Turkish media outlets broadcast footage purportedly showing Greek Coast Guard vessels chasing inflatable dinghies, suspected to be carrying illegal migrants, as far as off the coast of Muğla, Türkiye’s Mediterranean shoreline.

In a phone conversation with Greece’s Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy Minister Christos Stylianides on Sept. 23, Yerlikaya underscored that such breaches are intolerable if the two nations are to preserve amicable neighborly relations.

More than 37,000 asylum seekers entered Greece in the first nine months of the year, according to the Greek ministry figures.

Arrivals are predicted to reach 50,000 by the end of the year.

Disasters involving would-be asylum seekers occur regularly off the coast of Greece, one of the main countries through which people fleeing poverty or war in Africa, Asia and the Middle East seek to enter the European Union.

Several people have drowned in migrant boat sinkings in recent days.

Greek government officials have stressed that the country's camps, which can accommodate some 50,000 asylum seekers while their claims for refuge are processed , are not currently under pressure.

But two key new facilities have faced obstacles.

The EU in 2021 allocated 155 million euros ($167 million) to the Greek government to build new camps on the Aegean islands of Lesbos and Chios.

But work on both projects has been held up by local opposition.

In Chios, the plan may have to be scrapped altogether, the ministry official admitted on Oct. 24.

Lesbos, meanwhile, has faced an ongoing dispute about widening a road through a pristine forest to the new camp, which is nearly complete.