Defense, foreign ministers to brief MPs on Evros border developments

Greece’s ministers for Defense Nikos Panagiotopoulos and Foreign Affairs Nikos Dendias are on Tuesday to brief lawmakers on the situation at the country’s northeastern land border with Turkey.

The ministers will be briefing Parliament’s Committee of Defense and Foreign Affairs after Athens lodged a complaint with Ankara over the presence of Turkish military in an area where Greece is planning to build a fence to prevent undocumented migrants from crossing the border.

The area in question, Melissokomeio, is located at a point that floods every year after the autumn and, on maps of 1923 according to which the borders were drawn, is shown as belonging to Greece.

The briefing also comes after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said over the weekend that a new wave of migrants is expected to head to Greece, raising concerns of a repeat of scenes from early March, when hundreds of migrants and refugees attempted to push through the land border at Evros in a bid to reach the European Union.