Cyprus urges EU states to share burden of migration

Cyprus’s interior ministry has said larger European Union countries should do their fair share and accept more migrants from overburdened member states.

The ministry said in a statement to AP on Monday that the EU needs a more "balanced, holistic and integrated" approach to migration that includes moving people from the coastal countries that first receive them.

The ministry said Cyprus would adhere to its EU obligations, but that there's a "misperception" the island nation situated between Turkey and Greece isn’t on the front line of Europe's refugee influx from Syria and other Mideast countries.

EU statistics show that Cyprus ranks fourth among the bloc’s 28 nations in the number of asylum applications per capita. The island receives 894 applications for every 1 million of its people. [AP]