Alexandroupoli

Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias signed a Letter of Intent on Thursday with his Romanian and Bulgarian counterparts for cross-border military mobility cooperation.

A fire broke out shortly after noon on Thursday in low grassland near the port city of Alexandroupoli, northern Greece, the Fire Service said.

The blaze started at the 611th km of the Egnatia highway, authorities said.

A force of 25 firefighters with one team on foot and a helicopter are battling the flames. 

Nine individuals have been arrested following a violent altercation in the early hours of Sunday in the town of Alexandroupoli, located in northern Greece.

Three people are due to appear before a prosecutor in the northeastern city of Alexandroupoli on charges of human trafficking and illegal possession of a travel document.

A 46-year-old high school teacher has been arrested in the northern city of Alexandroupoli following a complaint by a 17-year-old student alleging he had been following her on school premises with threatening intent. 

Direct access to the islands of Imbros (or Gokceada in Turkish) and Tenedos (or Bozcaada) has been a perennial request of the natives of the two islands. Particularly on Imbros, the largest of the two, where, under the Lausanne Treaty, Ankara had a contractual obligation to safeguard rights and property (and certainly did so only piecemeal), there is a problem of access from Greece.

A massive wildfire that decimated vast tracts of forest in northeastern Greece over 17 days was gradually abating on Monday, although hundreds of firefighters were still tackling pockets that continued to burn, the fire department said.

The European Union's largest wildfire since the bloc started keeping records more than two decades ago showed no signs of abating Wednesday in northeastern Greece despite the efforts of a multinational firefighting force on the ground and a fleet of water-dropping aircraft.

The Evros fire in northeastern Greece has destroyed at least 808.7 square kilometers, an area larger than New York City, which occupies 778.2 square kilometers, making it the largest blaze in the EU since 2000, according to data from Copernicus' Emergency Management Agency.

The Evros wildfire, now in its 11th day, has destroyed an area larger than New York City, the European Union-backed Copernicus Climate Change Service has said.