Zuhal Demirci
12 March 2020•Update: 12 March 2020
ANKARA
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu questioned his Greek counterpart late Wednesday over the situation of refugees at their border.
In a post on Twitter, Cavusoglu responded to a tweet by Nikos Dendias by citing a report in The New York Times about refugees who are attempting to make their way to Europe.
"Have you seen this?" he asked Dendias, providing the link for the article.
The Times report said the Greek government detains migrants and holds them in bad conditions.
The newspaper said the migrants have been captured, stripped of their belongings, beaten and expelled from Greece without being given a chance to claim asylum or speak to a lawyer.
Greek government spokesperson Stelios Petsas denied the report’s allegations at a weekly press conference earlier Wednesday.
Turkey recently announced that it would no longer try to stop asylum seekers from reaching Europe.
Thousands of asylum seekers have since flocked to Turkey’s Edirne province bordering Greece and Bulgaria to make their way to Europe.
The Greek reaction to asylum seekers has been harsh, with many battered, attacked or tear-gassed and even killed by Greek forces.
With 3.7 million Syrian migrants already in Turkey, more than any other country in the world, and some 1 million poised across the border in Idlib, Syria, Ankara says it cannot absorb another refugee wave.
*Writing by Fahri Aksut
