Greece urges Frontex not to leave the country

Greece’s new migration minister said on Monday that he considered it “unthinkable” if the European Union withdrew its border security forces from the country and vowed to address a growing list of international claims for dealing with migrants.

Dispute between the Greek government and the border agency EU Frontex escalated after June 14 off the coast of mainland Greece trawler sank with hundreds of migrants, resulting in the death of more than 500 people. Frontex also gave Greece until July 10 to provide an explanation for the new messages on alleged illegal deportations of migrants on the Greek island of Lesvos.

Dimitris Keridis, the new migration minister, said he would meet with Frontex representatives in Athens and at the agency’s headquarters in Warsaw, Poland, in the coming days.

“I think it would be unthinkable for Frontex to leave our country,” Keridis said in an interview with the state television channel ERT. “They would put themselves in danger. Their main goal is to protect the borders of the European Union.”

Keridis was sworn in as a minister last week after winning the re-election of Greece’s conservatives. On Monday, he confirmed that consultations had already taken place with Frontex, “regarding its presence in Greece – nothing more.”

The story of the fishing boat that sank almost in full view of the Coast Guard ship is still intriguing with many obscure details. The Coast Guard was caught on several occasions with inconsistencies in testimony, and court officials had to put pressure on the management of the sailors to get audio and video recordings from them, as well as telemetry data.

According to the documents, court officials investigating the circumstances of the shipwreck were given audio documents, radio communications of this ship with a fishing vessel, with other vessels, everything that was recorded on the ship’s bridge and the Coast Guard operations center. Also provided are photocopies of five pages of the log book, which accurately records all the movements of the Coast Guard.

This situation puts in a difficult position the members of the Coast Guard, who previously declaredthat they were far from the ship in distress and could not help the victims of the shipwreck. Later, they changed their testimony and began to say that they were nearby, but everything happened too quickly. What will be on the cameras ΛΣ 920? Will there be information that the Coast Guard is responsible for the strange sinking of a ship with migrants?

And while this data is classified, Frontex is trying to dissociate itself from this incident.

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