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Greek PM slams Turkey for preventing NATO force in Aegean Southern Balkan states agree to work together on immigration
(about 2 hours later)
ATHENS, Greece — Greece’s prime minister is criticizing Turkey for preventing a NATO force in the Aegean Sea from expanding its activities further south as part of its deployment to help tackle the refugee crisis. ATHENS, Greece — Foreign ministers of Greece, Macedonia, Albania and Bulgaria said Friday they will work to improve coordination along southern Europe’s migrant trial.
NATO has deployed ships in the northern Aegean to help combat migrant smugglers taking people from Turkey to Greek islands, but it has not deployed in the southern Aegean area. Greece says this is because Turkey objects, considering it to be a demilitarized area. “Still today, activists, NGOs and human smugglers are cooperating across borders in an easier manner than state institutions do,” Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki said following the two-day talks in Thessaloniki.
Alexis Tsipras also says Turkey has increased airspace violations in the Aegean with its fighter jets, and that Greece “will not accept or tolerate any actions which violate or dispute our sovereign rights.” “I think that one of the messages we are sending from this meeting is that we are going to coordinate our efforts, we are going to try to avoid having solutions that are going to be at the expense of only one country,” Poposki added. “We have to send a message that (the) road to the Balkans, for the migrants, is not going to see the same evolution as it has seen at 2015.”
Tsipas was speaking Friday after meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. More than a million refugees and other migrants, who arrived on the Greek islands in smugglers’ boats from Turkey, passed through Greece to Macedonia and other countries on the western Balkan corridor since the beginning of 2015, on their way to Europe’s prosperous heartland.
But the route closed this year, as a crackdown by Austrian authorities had a domino effect all the way to Macedonia’s border with Greece, leaving more than 50,000 people stranded on the Greek side — including about 10,000 at the closed border crossing of Idomeni.
The border closure, and repeated efforts by migrants on the Greek side to force their way into Macedonia, prompted tension between the two governments: Macedonia accused Greece of doing nothing to stop the attempts, and Greece complained of heavy-handed Macedonian police tactics. The two neighbors have been at odds for decades over Macedonia’s official name, which Athens says should be altered to imply no claims on the neighboring Greek province of Macedonia.
“Foreign policy must overcome problems, and solve them through negotiations,” Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias said. The four neighbors agreed that special action is needed in responding to vulnerable groups of migrants, such as unaccompanied minors, and to work together more closely on fighting human trafficking.
Earlier Friday, Greece’s prime minister criticized Turkey for preventing a NATO force in the Aegean Sea from expanding its activities further south.
NATO has deployed ships in the northern Aegean to help combat migrant smugglers but has not deployed in the southern Aegean area. Greece says this is because Turkey objects, considering it to be a demilitarized area.
Alexis Tsipras also said Turkey has increased airspace violations in the Aegean with its fighter jets, and that Greece “will not accept or tolerate any actions which violate or dispute our sovereign rights.”
Tsipas spoke after a meeting in Athens with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.