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Latvia mulls admission of asylum seekers from Turkey: official

Xinhua, March 16, 2016 Adjust font size:

Some 50 asylum seekers could be relocated to Latvia from Turkey in the coming months under a pending EU-wide agreement, a Latvian interior ministry official said on Tuesday.

Interior ministry state secretary Ilze Petersone-Godmane told members of the Latvian parliament employment subcommittee that most of the 531 asylum seekers Latvia is supposed to admit in the next couple of years would be relocated from EU member states Greece and Italy, but that 50 migrants have to be relocated from non-EU countries, such as Turkey.

The Latvian interior ministry is therefore planning admission from this country, which is struggling to cope with a massive influx of migrants.

The interior ministry official also told lawmakers that the two families of asylum seekers that arrived in Latvia in February this year, one from Syria and one from Eritrea, were currently waiting for the Latvian authorities to process their asylum applications. Both families have expressed the intention to stay and integrate in Latvia. Endit