Hungary's foreign minister Peter Szijjarto. (AFP Photo)
Budapest:
Hungary will close at midnight (2200 GMT) its border with Croatia, a major entry point for tens of thousands of migrants bound for northern Europe, Hungary's foreign minister said Friday.
"The National Security Cabinet has decided that... we will close the green border from midnight," Peter Szijjarto said.
"The official border posts will continue to operate, but under strict controls," he told a news conference in Budapest.
On Wednesday the Hungarian government had said that it had completed a fence along its border with Croatia and that it was ready to seal the frontier.
Last month Hungary sealed its border with Serbia, until then the main crossing point, with razor wire and fences.
This though merely diverted the flow of people into Croatia, from where they crossed the border into Hungary.
EU member Hungary is on the southern frontier of Europe's passport-free Schengen zone, which has come under intense pressure as the European Union faces its biggest migrant crisis since 1945.
More than 386,000 migrants have crossed into the country so far in 2015, with the number likely to exceed 700,000 by the end of the year, according to Hungarian authorities.
Having travelled up from Greece through the western Balkans, all but a few have continued their journey, crossing into Austria and then further north, often to Germany and Scandinavia.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has drawn considerable criticism with his approach of erecting fences and heavy-handed treatment of migrants by the police and army.
But Orban says that unlike Greece, Hungary is merely doing its job of protecting Europe's borders, while criticising Germany for encouraging people to migrate.
He has drawn flak for his warnings about the dangers posed by the arrival into Europe of large numbers of Muslim immigrants.
"Islam has never been part of Europe, it came to us," Orban told German magazine Focus in an interview to be published in full Saturday.
"The National Security Cabinet has decided that... we will close the green border from midnight," Peter Szijjarto said.
"The official border posts will continue to operate, but under strict controls," he told a news conference in Budapest.
On Wednesday the Hungarian government had said that it had completed a fence along its border with Croatia and that it was ready to seal the frontier.
Last month Hungary sealed its border with Serbia, until then the main crossing point, with razor wire and fences.
This though merely diverted the flow of people into Croatia, from where they crossed the border into Hungary.
EU member Hungary is on the southern frontier of Europe's passport-free Schengen zone, which has come under intense pressure as the European Union faces its biggest migrant crisis since 1945.
More than 386,000 migrants have crossed into the country so far in 2015, with the number likely to exceed 700,000 by the end of the year, according to Hungarian authorities.
Having travelled up from Greece through the western Balkans, all but a few have continued their journey, crossing into Austria and then further north, often to Germany and Scandinavia.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has drawn considerable criticism with his approach of erecting fences and heavy-handed treatment of migrants by the police and army.
But Orban says that unlike Greece, Hungary is merely doing its job of protecting Europe's borders, while criticising Germany for encouraging people to migrate.
He has drawn flak for his warnings about the dangers posed by the arrival into Europe of large numbers of Muslim immigrants.
"Islam has never been part of Europe, it came to us," Orban told German magazine Focus in an interview to be published in full Saturday.
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