Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has promised to build a wall along the country's entire land border with Turkey, Associated Press reports.
The prime minister will sign off on his center-right government's decision to almost double the length of the existing steel border wall within the next year. The wall currently stretches for 37.5km and the government plans to extend it by an additional 35km in the next 12 months. Officials say that more than 100km of the wall will be added by 2026.
Border security remains an issue in Greece due to the long-running dispute with Turkey and the mass migration of refugees and migrants to the EU in 2015 and 2016, mainly caused by the war in Syria and Iraq.
Mitsotakis and other officials have accused their political rivals in the leftist Syriza party of undermining the project and blocking the government's bid to secure EU funding for the project.
Syriza officials accused the government of misrepresenting the opposition's position, adding that the EU's executive committee had already rejected direct funding for the border wall.
The government says the wall is an effective barrier to illegal migration and helped to prevent more than estimated 250,000 land border crossings in 2022. Turkey has repeatedly accused Greece of pushing back against migrants seeking a better life in Europe.
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