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Turkey to deploy 1,000 Special Forces at Greek border over refugees situation

The minister noted that Turkey "does not stop migrants who would like to voluntarily cross into Greece"

MOSCOW, March 5. /TASS/. Turkish authorities have made a decision to deploy 1,000 Special Forces police officers on Greek border to curb attempts of migrants - most of whom are Syrians - to return to the Turkish territory, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Thursday.

"[Greece] has once more attempted to push 4,900 people into Turkey. This is one of the most serious infringements. We deploy 1,000 Special Forces police officers to prevent this. They would be fully equipped. Up to this point, 137,000 people have crossed the [EU’s] border from the [Turkey’s] Edirne province," the minister said, according to NTV report, adding that "Greek authorities are bogged in lies" and that "no one in the world wants to object to such violation of human rights."

The interior minister noted that Turkey "does not stop migrants who would like to voluntarily cross into Greece." At the same time, he said, Athens use weapons against the refugees, being unwilling to let them through, and "seek to push the refugees from the buffer zone back to Turkey."

The minister also noted incidents, in which Greek forces threw gas grenades at Turkish checkpoints.

Following a clash with the Syrian Army, which led to death of 36 Turkish servicemen, Ankara made a decision not to stop Syrian refugees who seek to enter the European Union. According to the Turkish authorities, 100,000 refugees have crossed the border.

However, these reports have been debunked by both the Russian military in Syria, who do not observe such mass movement of refugees towards the border, and by Athens. Athens accuse Ankara of organized transport of migrants and report almost 25,000 violations since March 1.