Finland Times

 

Interior Minister Petteri Orpo. File Photo – Lehtikuva.

Interior Minister Petteri Orpo on Thursday said there are still a lot of issues to be resolved on the cooperation agreement between the European Union and Turkey.

 

Orpo, however, said the refugee crisis has to be approached on the basis of the agreement.

 

According to the agreement, asylum seekers arriving in Greece would be returned to Turkey. 

 

The plan has drawn staunch criticism from the United Nations and human rights organisations.

 

The legal justification of the asylum seekers has been questioned. The agreement assumes that migrants who arrived in Greece may seek asylum in Turkey. At the moment, it is virtually impossible for Iraqis and Afghans to get asylum in Turkey.

 

It is also not clear how the return mechanism would be executed and who would make the decision.

 

Turkey’s Minister for EU Affairs Volkan Bozkir said Turkey does not intend to take back migrants already on the Greek islands.

 

Bozkir was quoted by the news agency AFP as saying that Turkey is ready to take back “tens of thousands” of migrants, “not hundreds of thousands or millions.” A couple of thousands of migrants with the help of smugglers have been arriving at the shores of Greek islands everyday this year.

 

The EU-Turkey deal is based on the idea that migrant flow would die up once it becomes evident that crossing the sea from Turkey to Greece turns out to be futile.