Koumoutsakos visiting Ankara amid spike in migrant arrivals

Migration minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos is visiting Ankara on Thursday to discuss the recent spike in migrant arrivals on the Greek islands with Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu.

The two ministers will focus on the implementation of the 2016 EU-Turkey Declaration, according to a press release. 

“If flows are restricted effectively, we can all win. But it is a matter of Ankara's own will. We will try to explore channels of communication, develop a system of cooperation, in the framework of the EU-Turkish agreement,” Koumoutsakos said.

“The problem is not bilateral, but it is the bilateral dimension of an EU-Turkish agreement,” he added. 

Speaking to members of the Parliament’s foreign affairs and defence committee on Wednesday, Koumoutsakos said there was a 200 percent jump in the number of migrant arrivals in the last five months, and that the EU-Turkey statement worked until 2017, but as of 2018, there had been an “impressive increase.”