Turkey has deployed 1,000 police officers to its border to prevent Greece pushing migrants and refugees back, its interior minister said, as thousands massed at the Greek frontier.
“A thousand special force police officers are deployed from this morning to the Meric River on the border, fully equipped, to prevent people being pushed back,” Suleyman Soylu told reporters during a visit to the northwestern province of Edirne on Thursday.
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The river is known as Evros in Greece.
Soylu accused Greece of “mistreating” migrants and refugees and said Turkey “would not allow it”.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last week that migrants and refugees would no longer be stopped from trying to reach Europe, reneging on a commitment to hold them on Turkish territory under a 2016 deal with the European Union.
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