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Germany, Mogherini ignorant about Turkey-Greece Migrants’ Readmission and link to EU deal

Caught red-handed. They don’t know what’s the EU law on Migrants’ readmission, its connection to bilateral agreement between Greece and Turkey. The EU, Germany and the NATO got it all wrong, while the Commission said that the bilateral agreement is “point of reference” to EU-Turkey deal.

The European Union and the NATO have not much to say about Turkey’s unilateral decision to cancel the agreement with Greece and suspend the readmission of migrants, as Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, announced on Thursday as retaliation for the release of the 8 Turkish Servicemen.

NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, has called for “restraint and calm”, while EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini said that the agreement is a bilateral one between Greece and Turkey, claiming it will not affect the EU-Turkey deal, and so did Germany. However, the European Commission warned Turkey that it needs to keep implementing the agreement as it is one of the “benchmarks” for the liberalization of visas for Turkish citizens.

Speaking to journalists following the Defense Ministers’ meeting of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) in Brussels, Stoltenberg said he discussed the ongoing feud between the two NATO allies with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Greek government.

“I think that my main message today is the importance of showing your restraint and calm, because it is important to try to solve these issues, and therefore restraint and calm is my most important message today,” Stoltenberg said.

The German government does not expect Turkey’s decision to suspend a migrant agreement with Greece to affect a similar agreement between Ankara and the European Union, a spokeswoman for the German Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

“To our knowledge the events of yesterday do not affect the deal with the EU,” a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said. “We hope that a dialogue between Greece and Turkey will take place to clarify unresolved issues.”

The European Commission threaten Turkey with an issue that is top on its agenda: Visas for Turkish citizens. EU spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud reportedly said the EU Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos was in contact with both sides.

Bertaux underlined that the bilateral agreement on migrants’ readmission was a point of reference in the EU-Turkey Migration deal and precondition for  scrapping the visas for Turkish citizens.

“The Commission’s position is that the readmission agreement should be continuously implemented,” the spokeswoman said adding “that the only way to meet the last preconditions for the road map to scrap the visas for Turkish citizens.”

She added that in 2017 and first months of 2018, only 25 migrants were readmitted to Turkey.

The bilateral agreement refers to migrants’ readmission from the islands, while the EU-Turkey deal refers to readmission from the islands.

As of 21 March 2016, a total of 600 migrants were readmitted to Turkey from the mainland and 1,624 from the islands.

 

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One comment

  1. Sorry, this is 100% Kabuki theatre to keep the gormless masses enthralled by the ‘accidental cross purpose’ ‘it’s all too complicated to keep track of’ storyline. EU has no intention of giving Turkey visas and no intention of stopping the flow of migrants – oh sorry, I meant war refugees, like all these nice Syrian families in the photo accompanying your text. As for NATO (Stollenberg: ‘restraint and calm’, Turkey is still part of NATO and need only keep playing its assigned role.