Last week the Greek Coastguard thought they had a very ‘usual’ day in trying to prevent illegal immigrants embarking from Turkey from reaching the Greek islands. However, one day last week turned out to be very different from every other day. With a boat of illegal immigrants prevented from entering Greece’s maritime space in the eastern Aegean, a Turkish coastguard approached the boat and then kept a safe distance from it in an unusual action.
Under observation from the Greek coastguard, a second Turkish coastguard arrived at the boat with illegal immigrants, with all the Turkish crew wearing medical protective suits, confirming suspicions that some of the people on the boat were infected with coronavirus.
The story was first broken on SLPress by well-respected journalist Lygeros Stavros.
In Stavros’ words “as unbelievable as it may seem, everything leads to the conclusion that the Turkish state has consciously orchestrated an indirect attack with biological warfare against Greece. Apparently, Turkey expected that - as in the past - if the ship arrived on the Greek island, the migrants would be taken temporarily to a migration center.”
In late February, Turkey launched an asymmetrical attack against Greece on the land border in Evros by facilitating tens of thousands of immigrants to try and enter Greece illegally. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had not expected that Greece would react so strongly to defend its border, nor had he expected that a wave of solidarity and assistance from the European Union would unfold. Many European countries sent their own police units to assist in protecting Greece’s borders from the Turkish aggression.
With the coronavirus spreading among the migrant camps on the Turkish side of the border, as reported by Greek City Times, the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants were bussed out from the border region and back to the cities they once lived in. However, as seen, the coronavirus pandemic will not stop Turkey’s facilitation of immigrants from attempting to enter Greece illegally.
We must remember the words of former Turkish President Turgut Özal: “We do not need to make war with Greece. We just need to send them a few million immigrants and finish with them.”
It is for this reason that Turkey will never alleviate its efforts to flood Greece with illegal immigrants, even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Rather, the coronavirus provides an opportunity for Turkey to conduct a biological attack against Greece.
According to official figures in Turkey, the country has about 21,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus. However, as far back as March 21 Professor Muhammed Emin Akkoyunlu said on Turkish television that coronavirus cases in Turkey could be around 145,000 people and many journalists disputing the official numbers are arrested. While Greece has effectively dealt with coronavirus to just over 1,600 cases through quick and efficient lockdowns and social distancing, pro-Erdoğan Habertürk TV were conducting debates on whether Turkish genetics protected the population from coronavirus.
Erdoğan supported terrorist forces operating in Syria to fight against government troops, forcing millions of Syrians to seek safety in Turkey. The Turkish president wants Greece to take responsibility despite not involving itself in the Syrian war. Now that Greece is effectively dealing with coronavirus and the pandemic unfortunately becoming out of control in Turkey because of inefficient governance, Ankara is once again attempting to export its problems into Greece. There is little doubt that Turkey is trying to create a coronavirus cluster in Greece’s migrant camps rather than trying to treat the infected people before sending them to Greece’s waters, clearly demonstrating Erdoğan is attempting to damage Greece as much as he can.
