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Latvia offers to resettle 250 refugees

Xinhua, July 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

Latvia has agreed to admit 250 refugees from across the Mediterranean on a voluntary basis, local media reported on Monday.

The coalition government made the decision on Monday, with the centre-right Unity and the centrist Greens and Farmers Union (ZZS) backing the admission of refugees and the right-wing National Alliance rejecting the plan.

Roberts Zile, a representative of the National Alliance, told the press that the Latvian government should stick to a firm position that the "refugee quotas" proposed by the EU must not be applied to Latvia.

Latvian Interior Minister Rihards Kozlovskis said earlier that the only criterion for the migrant intake would be their qualification for refugee status, which means that asylum would be granted to persons that are persecuted in their countries of origin on ethnic, political or religious grounds and whose lives are in danger there.

The minister also said that Latvia might have to build a new asylum centre for the arriving migrants. Endit