Greek president accuses Turkish port officials of helping people smugglers

Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos said Turkey was not doing enough to reduce the number of migrants arriving in Europe and accused Turkish port officials of helping people smugglers, drawing a denial from Ankara on Monday.

Turkey reached a deal with EU officials late last year to keep more refugees inside its borders and stop them travelling onto Europe. Thousands fleeing civil war in Syria have made the perilous journey from Turkey, across the Aegean Sea to Ankara's long-term regional rival Greece, many of them dying on the way.

"I greatly fear that Turkish people smugglers are getting support from the authorities," Pavlopoulos said in an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung published on Monday.

"In particular, the port authorities act as if they don't notice anything. There are cases in which smugglers have supposedly been helped. We have evidence for this," he said.

A senior Turkish official strongly denied the allegations, saying Ankara was determinedly fighting irregular migration.

"Allegations that Turkish authorities have closed their eyes to human trafficking and helped smugglers are baseless and slander," the official told Reuters...
  todayszaman.com with Reuters
 18/1/16
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Related:

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• Turkey plans to introduce work permits for Syrian refugees, minister says 

• Migrant crisis: Fake life jackets for migrants seized in Turkey

• ‘Biggest refugee inflow still ahead:’ 10 million could come to Europe – (German minister)

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