EU top officials to visit Greece’s border with Turkey over migrant crisis

EU top officials to visit Greece’s border with Turkey over migrant crisis
March 2, 2020, 12:07 pm

Migrants try to bring down part of a border fence on the Turkish-Greek border at Turkey's Pazarkule border crossing with Greece's Kastanies, near Edirne. (Reuters)

The top three chiefs of the EU’s institutions – its executive, parliament, and Council – are to visit Greece’s border with Turkey in support of Athens as it confronts a building migration crisis, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday.

Council President Charles Michel, European Parliament President David Sassoli and von der Leyen will accompany Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to the frontier on Tuesday, she told a Brussels media conference.

Greece has suspended asylum procedures to prevent thousands of migrants crossing its border from Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facilitating the flow to pressure the EU to support him as his forces escalate combat in Syria.

“I acknowledge that Turkey is in a difficult situation in regards to the refugees and migrants, but what we see now cannot be the answer and the solution,” von der Leyen said.