FM Çavuşoğlu: Greece steps up Türkiye slander as its crimes increase

As Greece commits more crimes, it is totally normal that the country is stepping up its slander of Türkiye, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Monday after Athens recently targeted Ankara over its alleged treatment of migrants.

Speaking at a press conference following the extraordinary meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) in Istanbul, Çavuşoğlu touched on the issue, saying: “One has to be truly shameless and reckless to try to appear right even in the most unfair situation like Greece.”

Çavuşoğlu’s remarks come a day after Greek Migration and Asylum Minister Notis Mitarachi accused Türkiye of mistreating 92 refugees on the Greek-Turkish border on Twitter, and also shared a photograph of immigrants who were robbed, stripped naked and abandoned.

“Frontex is being an accomplice to Greece,” Çavuşoğlu said further, referring to the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.

Employees of Frontex have been covering up Greece’s illegal pushbacks of migrants to Türkiye in violation of peoples’ “fundamental rights,” a much-anticipated report by the European Union’s anti-fraud watchdog (OLAF) said last week.

OLAF investigators poured over information from open sources, media reports but also documents from Frontex, the European Commission and interviews with 20 witnesses to investigate accusations of possible involvement and/or covering up of illegal pushbacks and accusations of misconduct or irregularities.

Frontex officers also may not have reported alleged pushbacks due to fear of repercussions from Greece, the report said. In one case, the report said the EU border agency relocated one of its planes apparently “to avoid witnessing incidents in the Aegean Sea.”