Greek PM: Turkey should have been invited to EU migration summit

The EU and the Balkans’ summit on the refugee crisis will be useless without the participation of Turkey, the Anadolu Agency reported the Greek prime minister as saying yesterday.

“Turkey has a special responsibility in the refugee crisis,” Alexis Tsipras told reporters on the sidelines of an informal EU summit on migration convened by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

“Greece has been facing the brunt of the crisis, as Syrians, Afghans and others by the hundreds of thousands flee their homelands through Turkey, across the sea to Greece and into the 28-nation EU,” he added.

“If we will not be able to agree with the country of entrance, I’m afraid it will be very difficult to find a solution,” Tsipras said.

Tsiparis has publicly criticised what he described as many EU countries’ adoption of a “not in our backyard” stance.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has called leaders of Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia as well as refugee organisations involved, to attend the meeting in Brussels.

The summit’s draft statement said the participating states have agreed to strengthen the external border management of the Balkan region.

According to the draft statement: “400 border guards will be dispatched to secure the border between Greece, Macedonia and Albania.”