Merkel lauds Greek border stance
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed during talks on Monday in Berlin that they would wait for the next European Union leaders’ summit on March 26-27 to evaluate Ankara’s behavior and ascertain whether there is any good will on its part for a solution to the migration crisis.
According to sources, Merkel will present a new plan at the summit to replace the existing EU-Turkey migrant deal, which is seen as a dead letter.
At the same time, Mitsotakis conveyed that Athens favors this prospect and that it will not veto a NATO declaration on Syria requested by Ankara, provided it changes its stance on the Evros land border.
Merkel also opined that Greece’s unwavering stance at the border caught Erdogan by surprise, while also praising Mitsotakis for the fact that returns to Turkey of migrants whose asylum applications have been rejected have already started – a perennial German demand.
In her address to the German-Greek Economic Forum in Berlin, Merkel described as “unacceptable” Ankara’s effort to “resolve its own problems at the expense of refugees” who, she added, end up trapped in an impasse at the Greek-Turkish border.
