(AFP) EU members on Wednesday rejected what they said is Turkey’s use of desperate migrants to pressure its neighbours — and strongly backed Greece’s border crackdown.
In a statement agreed by European interior ministers meeting in Brussels, the 27 capitals said the “situation at the EU’s external borders is not acceptable.”
Earlier, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government had denied that it was using the threat of a wave of migrants to “blackmail” the EU.
But the EU statement said the bloc “strongly rejects Turkey’s use of migratory pressure for political purposes.”
Ankara wants Brussels to step up support for the 3.7 million refugees and migrants that Turkey is already hosting, and back Turkey in its increasingly intense confrontation with the Syrian regime.
