Turkey must control migrant flow to Europe, says Greek PM

Greece’s prime minister accused Turkey on Friday of appearing to “exploit” Europe’s migrant crisis for its own ends and said Ankara can and must control migrant flows to the continent.

Greece, the route into Europe for nearly a million refugees and migrants in 2015, is dealing with a new and steep rise in people crossing the Aegean to its islands from neighbouring Turkey after a relative three-year lull.

The influx has piled pressure on its massively overcrowded migrant camps and prompted the new conservative government to announce a stricter policy to curb the flows, which includes tightening its borders and deporting more people.

“I want to be absolutely clear,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told a parliament session. “Turkey... must also assume its responsibility.

“It has the ability to control the flows in the Aegean. It cannot give the impression that it is exploiting this issue for its own geopolitical pursuits,” he said.

Flows to Greece slowed to a trickle after the European Union and Turkey agreed in 2016 to seal off the Aegean route, before picking up again in August and September to the highest monthly numbers in the three years since the deal.

Turkey, which hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees, has threatened to “open the gates” unless Ankara receives adequate international support for a plan to resettle 1 million refugees in northern Syria.

It effectively controls parts of north Syria where it says 350,000 Syrians have returned. Together with the United States it is setting up a “safe zone” in the northeast, where it says many more could be moved.

Under the 2016 pact, Ankara would take back undocumented migrants and refugees, including Syrians, who cross to Greek islands and do not qualify for asylum. In return, the EU would take in thousands of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey and reward it with more money and other benefits.

More than 78,000 refugees and migrants have arrived in Europe so far this year, more than half of them to Greece, according to United Nations data. About 40 per cent are families from Afghanistan and about 20 per cent Syrian.

Mitsotakis said most “have the profile of an economic migrant and not that of a refugee,” and reiterated plans to deport 10,000 rejected asylum seekers by the end of next year.

“This issue is here to stay,” he said. “Europe will constitute a magnet for people from Africa and the Middle East.”

Turkey’s foreign minister has called on European nations to work with Ankara on solving the refugee crisis instead of blaming it for a rise in migrant flows to Europe.

Mevlut Cavusoglu made the comments on Friday after a meeting with German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and European Union migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, who are in Ankara to discuss a Turkish-EU migration deal as well as a recent spike in migrants reaching Greece.

Cavusoglu’s comments were aimed at French President Emmanuel Macron who criticised Turkey this week over its migration management. The Turkish minister said Macron’s accusations “are not acceptable.”

Cavusoglu said he also discussed Turkish calls to create a so-called “safe zone” in northeast Syria where Turkey hopes to resettle some 2 million Syrian refugees.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council has voted unanimously to extend for a year the authorisation for UN member nations to search vessels on the high seas off the coast of Libya if there are reasonable suspicions they are being used to smuggle migrants or for human trafficking.

The British-drafted resolution approved on Thursday condemns such acts, saying they undermine efforts to stabilise the North African country “and endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.”

The European Union’s Operation Sophia had been the only regional naval operation carrying out inspections, but Italy’s previous populist government suspended deployment of ships, saying in March it would instead send more planes to monitor the area.

Last week, the EU extended Operation Sophia’s mandate until March 31, still using only planes.

Agencies