Greek PM welcomes EU-Turkey summit outcome, urging more swift steps to address refugee crisis

Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras welcomed on Tuesday the outcome of the latest EU-Turkey summit in Brussels on the resolution of the refugee crisis, urging more swift steps in coming days.

The meeting of EU leaders with Turkey, the second in five months, ended on Monday night with a fresh initial agreement that the flow of refugees and migrants from Turkey into Greece must be curbed with a new set of coordinated actions.

However, Ankara's additional requests for the enhanced cooperation will be further discussed in another critical EU summit in Brussels on March 17-18.

More than 2.5 million refugees fleeing wars are currently hosted in Turkey. In exchange for stemming the influx and taking refugees and migrants back Ankara asked for more financial aid for their accommodation.

The Turkish leadership also requested the lifting of visa requirements for Turkish nationals travelling to the EU and the acceleration of negotiations for its accession to the European Union.

Under the new agreement on the table, Greece will also receive additional financial aid to assist the refugees and migrants trapped in its territory.

"I think that the results of the summit could only be described as a step forward," Tsipras commented early on Tuesday, according to the Greek news agency AMNA.

The Greek Premier stressed the need to make more steps forward quickly, pointing to the dramatic images of thousands of refugees queuing in the rain for several days in inhumane conditions at the border crossing of Idomeni in Greece's northern borders with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) after the gradual essential closing of borders in Austria and many Balkan states from mid-February.

Tsipras appeared content that the dialogue has now shifted from unilateral policies of shutting down borders and trapping migrants in Greece towards talks on an effective comprehensive solution to curb refugee flows by strengthening collaboration with Turkey.

However, until this new deal is finalized, the bargaining among all sides continues and the strict limits are still kept on the number of refugees allowed entering FYROM and the other states of the Balkan route.

On Tuesday the Greek-Turkish dialogue continues in Izmir in Turkey, where the two neighbor countries hold a meeting to update among others a decade old bilateral agreement on readmission of all migrants who enter Greece from Turkey and are not eligible for asylum.

In his statements at the end of the Brussels summit the Greek leader said that the Izmir meeting was a "historic meeting that can be a first step to combat human traffickers" exploiting refugees seeking to cross the Aegean Sea.

More than a million have entered Europe this way since the start of 2015, according to official statistics, and on average more than 1,000 people per day keep boarding risky boats despite the adverse weather conditions to reach the Greek islands.

According to the latest data from the Greek Coast Guard, more than 4,700 people were rescued over the past week in 91 different incidents in the Aegean. In 2015, the Greek Coast Guard saved almost 100,000 people, while more than 350 refugees and migrants - with half of them children and infants- perished in the water.

More than 33,500 refugees are currently in Greece, according to the latest data of the government's newly established Coordinating Centre for the Management of Migration. About 8,000 are in tents at the Idomeni border crossing, more than 6,000 at the Greek islands, almost 2,500 at Piraeus' port terminals and the rest scattered across overwhelmed reception facilities across the country.

Greek government officials assured that the situation will improve by next week, as authorities are working nonstop to deliver more hosting centers with a total capacity of 17,000 beds across Greece.

Athens has been given a deadline by European partners in February to fulfill all its commitments under autumn's EU agreement on the handling of the refugee crisis and build sufficient facilities to host refugees by May. Otherwise, the country may face expulsion from the European passport-free Schengen zone for up to two years. Endit