Athens vows to speed up migrant deportations

Officials from Greece's new conservative government have vowed to speed up the asylum process for migrants and refugees and restart deportations to neighboring Turkey despite renewed tension between the two NATO members.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met in Athens Monday with Dimitris Avramopoulos, the Greek commissioner at the EU for migration, home affairs, and government officials later said that discussions focused on rapidly reducing a backlog of asylum applications and a return to the terms of a 2016 European Union-Turkey agreement that allow for the deportation of migrants whose applications have been rejected.

Mitsotakis' conservatives won general elections this month on a pledge to cut taxes and take tougher line on migration. Greece and Turkey remain at odds over a drilling rights dispute around the war-divided island of Cyprus.

[AP]