Athens tells Ankara “Turkey clearly not entitled to teach human rights”

Prompt was the response of the Greek Foreign Ministry to Turkish counterpart that that accused Athens of “barbaric treatment” of migrants wanting to cross into Europe.

“Those convicted by the international community of instrumentalizing human suffering for the sake of political expediency are clearly not entitled to teach human rights,” Athens said in a statement published on Thursday morning.

“The first timid steps of the Greek-Turkish dialogue that had just begun did not prevent Turkey from manifesting its unprecedented cynicism and triggering a new European-Turkish tension,” the statement added concluding that “Greece remains open to dialogue but is unwilling to co-operate in legitimizing persistent Turkish delinquency.”

The Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Thursday morning claiming that “Greece changes the reality, violates the rights of refugees and immigrants” and calls on Athens to “rationalize.”

“Greece violates the rights of refugees and migrants. It is a shame to call Turkey a barbaric country. The Greek state must get rid of its own barbarism, it must respect the rights of immigrants, not make barbarities, not promote them at the borders,” Ankara said among others.

“The country that claims to be the cradle of culture should respect those who have different religions and cultures,” the Turkish statement concluded.

A day earlier, Foreign Minister, Nikos Dendias, told Thema FM, that “the one who violates in a barbaric way is Turkey that pushes immigrants at the border.”

Tension between the two countries has risen again with Turkey threatening to send again migrants to the Evros border as soon as the pandemic is over.