Greek
police fired teargas to push back hundreds of migrants gathered on its border with
Turkey on Saturday, as a crisis over
Syria shifted onto the European Union's doorstep.
Greece, which has tense relations with its neighbor Turkey at the best of times and was a primary gateway for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in 2015 and 2016, described the situation an "onslaught" and said it would keep migrants out.
"Greece yesterday faced an organized, mass and illegal attempt to violate its borders and it withstood this attempt," government spokesman Stelios Petsas told reporters.