Turkey calls for end to NATO's migrant mission in Aegean

There is no need to NATO warships to patrol Turkey’s coast as the number of refugees trying to cross the Aegean Sea has dropped dramatically, a senior Turkish official has said.

Turkish Defence Minister Fikri Isik told other NATO defence ministers yesterday that Ankara no longer sees a need for the mission to continue beyond the end of December, according to two people briefed on the exchanges, despite strong support across the alliance for the mission.

“This was a temporary mission, and the goal has been reached in this temporary mission. There is no need to extend it further,” Isik told reporters in Brussels today.

“Whether this NATO force is here or not, we will continue our battle against this migrant movement,” he said.

The uncompromising stance came as NATO prepares to help a separate EU migrant maritime mission off Libya’s coast, to which Turkey will send ships and planes to carry out air and sea patrols of traffickers sending refugees towards Italy.

Germany’s Minister of Defence, Ursula von der Leyen, whose country currently leads the Aegean maritime mission, said the operation was secure until 31 December. Asked what could happen in 2017, she said: “We will have to see then”.

Diplomats say Turkey is unhappy with NATO ships moving about in waters that Turkey and Greece have long contested and is worried that Greece could gain the upper hand in a dispute about a group of islets in the Aegean Sea.

An end to the NATO mission, agreed in February, would alarm the European Union, which is facing its worst refugee crisis since the end of World War Two, driven by the war in Syria that has displaced some 11 million people over fiver and a half years.

An EU deal with Turkey remains in place and is providing Ankara with billions of euros so long as Turkey keeps refugees on its territory and stops people smugglers moving them across the Aegean to Greece. There, thousands of refugees are already in camps, waiting to be granted asylum or returned home.