Developments over the refugee crisis are happening rapidly as thousands of migrants are now stranded close to the northern Greek borders as FYROM is only opening its borders for very short periods of time and then only accepts Iraqi and Syrian refugees who have a passport and identification documents.
Earlier this morning, a police operation took place in order to evacuate the railroad lines which were occupied by Afghan refugees who were demonstrating against the FYROM decision to close its borders to them.
At the same time, boats keep arriving in the port of Piraeus bringing migrants from the Greek islands. The migrants are expecting buses in order to continue their journey towards northern Europe. Since the borders are closed they remain stranded in the port.
The Greek Prime Minister had a phone conference with the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, the current president of the EU council. Mr.Tsipras expressed his displeasure over the delay, if not disability, of the EU in imposing the agreement for the actions over the migrant crisis. The Greek PM also spoke about the meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Austria and countries of the western Balkans. The Prime Minister stressed that all the decisions concerning the refugee movements should be made by all concerned countries without any exclusions.
The Greek Minister of Defense, Panos Kamenos send a letter to NATO where he requested the swift arrival of vessels in the Eastern Greek islands. Mr.Kamenos told reporters that “Turkey is attempting to boycott the agreement…I have send a letter to the NATO General Secretary, asking him to enforce the agreement that we have jointly reached”. The Greek Minister also revealed that the representative of Turkey in the meeting between Turkey-Germany-Greece had stated that, whatever the Turkish politicians said, would not be imposed as they were “bullshit”.
The director of the Foreign Ministry, Petros Mavroides, has presented the Austrian Ambassador in Greece with a letter of protest regarding the Viennese decision to organize a meeting between the Ministers of Internal and Foreign Affairs of Austria and countries of the Western Balkans. The Greek Director pointed that Greece is burdened with a much higher strain from the migrant influx, without having anything to do with the reasons which caused the crisis, while Austria and other Balkan countries are attempting to impose solutions which will exclude Greece. The Austrian Ministry of Internal Affairs issued an answer saying that “These meetings of western Balkan countries take place between already set participants. It is a set scheme”.