ATHENS – Overwhelmed with more than 15,000 refugees and migrants on its islands, Greece wants Turkey – which let human traffickers send there – to take back those not likely to have their asylum applications accepted.
There are another 50,000 on the Greek mainland and Migration Minister Yiannis Mouzalas has refused until recently to let more than a small number of the most vulnerable on the islands to join them, saying it would break a suspended European Union swap deal with Turkey, the first stop for those fleeing war and strife in the Middle East, especially Syria.
The EU has closed its borders to them and reneged on promises to help take thousands to help Greece during its more than 7 ½-year-long economic crisis and European Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, a veteran Greek politician, hasn’t pushed them, saying the matter is politically delicate.
Caught between competing demands, as human rights groups said conditions in camps on the islands isn’t fit for humans, the government will propose the return of many to Turkey after they are processed on the Greek mainland. It wasn’t explained why they would be taken there instead of getting on a boat for the short ride back to the Turkish coast.
“We are asking that we be allowed to conduct returns either directly from the islands or from the mainland in the context of the EU-Turkey joint statement,” a government official told Kathimerini, referring to a deal between Brussels and Ankara signed in March 2016 aimed at curbing migrant smuggling across the Aegean.
According to sources, Turkish government officials have indicated that Ankara will respond to Greece’s request in the first half of January, the paper said.
During a visit to Athens in December, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had threatened to unleash thousands more refugees and migrants on Greek islands unless the EU speeded the payment of 6 billion euros ($7.22 billion), visa-free travel for Turks in Europe and a faster track path toward EU entry, said he might be willing to cooperate.
Some within the ruling Radical Left SYRIZA don’t want refugees returned, especially those who fled Syria’s civil war and the paper said those could be exempt to satisfy the critics.
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Source: thenationalherald.com
