Greek and Turkish coast guards aim to boost cooperation against migrant smuggling

ATHENS, Greece -- Senior Greek and Turkish coast guard officials have agreed to boost cooperation in restricting one of the main illegal migration routes into Europe, authorities said Wednesday.

A Greek coast guard statement said Tuesday's meeting on Greece's eastern Aegean Sea island of Chios was the first of its kind in five years. It's scheduled to be followed up in Turkey in February 2025.

The talks came amid a gradual improvement in relations between the two historic regional rivals, following a low point in 2020 that saw a spike in military tensions over offshore gas exploration rights.

The statement said the coast guard officials agreed to increase cooperation in the field as well as in exchanging intelligence on organized migrant smuggling groups.

Every year, thousands of migrants risk the short but dangerous sea journey from Turkey's western coast to the eastern Greek islands, mostly in small, unseaworthy boats. Coming from the Middle East, Africa or Asia, they seek a better life in the European Union.

Greece’s minister for merchant marine, Christos Stylianides, said the Chios meeting "was held in an exceptional climate and we agreed on specific practical, operational conclusions” on limiting migratory flows and tackling smugglers.

According to United Nations data, more than 52,000 people have entered Greece illegally so far this year, the vast majority by sea from Turkey. That's an increase from 2023, when nearly 49,000 migrants reached Greece between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31.

The rise in numbers is largely due to a surge in people making the longer and more hazardous sea crossing from Libya, with nearly 4,000 arrivals so far from the North African country. Most head for the southern Greek island of Crete, off which on Tuesday 19 people were picked up from a small boat by a passing cargo ship.

The Greek coast guard said Wednesday that one of people on the boat was arrested on suspicion of belonging to a migrant smuggling ring that had charged up to US$6,500 for a berth on the vessel. It had set off from Tobruk in eastern Libya, and was at sea for two days.