Top EU Officials To Visit Turkey To Discuss Cooperation On Migration

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Top EU Officials to Visit Turkey to Discuss Cooperation on Migration

The European Commission's new vice-president for European life and commissioner for home affairs will visit Turkey on Friday to discuss cooperation on migration, the body announced in a statement on Thursday

BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 05th December, 2019) The European Commission's new vice-president for European life and commissioner for home affairs will visit Turkey on Friday to discuss cooperation on migration, the body announced in a statement on Thursday.

Earlier this week, the Turkish Anadolu news agency reported, citing security sources, that the Turkish coast guard had rounded up 247 undocumented migrants as they attempted to cross over to Greece from Turkey's northwest coast Ankara conducts such operations regularly to curb migration flows from the Mediterranean Sea.

"Tomorrow, Vice-President for Promoting our European Way of Life, Margaritis Schinas, and Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, will travel to Ankara, Turkey .

.. Discussions will focus on cooperation on migration," the commission said.

According to the statement, the officials will meet with Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu and speaker of parliament Mustafa Sentop.

In 2016, Turkey signed a $6.6 million deal with the European Union to stop Europe-bound migrants trying to reach the continent and turn them back. This past October, however, EU countries condemned Ankara's anti-Kurdish operation in northern Syria, to which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded by threatening to send millions of Syrian refugees their way.