Refugee entries from Turkey 'too high': EU council head

3/4/2016 6:49:41 PM

(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) >European Council President Donald Tusk has said that while progress has been made in cooperation between EU and Turkey over the refugee crisis the number of asylum seekers entering Europe illegally remains ''too high''.

In remarks made in an invitation letter released Friday to all 28 EU leaders for an upcoming summit Monday Tusk said: ''In my meeting [with Turkish] Prime Minister Davutoglu in Ankara on Thursday we agreed that there is good progress to report on a number of actions in our EU-Turkey action plan but that the number of illegal entries from Turkey to Greece remains far too high”.

''We both believe that we can reduce the flow through large-scale and rapid return from Greece of all migrants not in need of international protection'' Tusk said adding that Turkey is ready to take back all asylum seekers caught in international waters.

Last month NATO announced its vessels operating alongside EU’s border agency Frontex would send rescued refugees in the Aegean back to Turkey.

''On Monday I would like us together with Prime Minister Davutoglu to discuss our cooperation on migration and beyond and endorse the concrete steps to implement our action plan'' Tusk said.

Under a refugee action plan the EU is expecting Turkey to crackdown on people smugglers and stem the flow of refugees coming into Europe via Greece.

In return the EU has pledged to provide 3 billion euros in aid for refugees in the country over the next two years visa liberalization for Turkish citizens and speeding up the EU candidate country’s accession process.

European Commission on Friday announced the first payout of 95 million euros to meet the needs of Syrian refugees in Turkey which hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees in the world.

On Friday EU’s statistics agency Eurostat also reported that a record number 1.2 million people applied for asylum in the EU in 2015 double the amount in 2014.

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