Greek PM satisfied with first draft of EU Council conclusions on Turkey

Greece expressed its quiet satisfaction on the draft statement of conclusions on Turkey reached by EU leaders at the European Council on Thursday.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he was satisfied that it "clarifies that the framework for improving EU-Turkey relations must be done in a gradual and reversible manner in the event that Turkey returns to a provocative thus reiterating the conclusions of last March's summit "

Mitsotakis made the comments following the final conclusions reached by the Council on migration.

"The European Council discussed the migration situation on the various routes. While the measures taken by the EU and Member States have brought down the overall irregular flows in recent years, developments on some routes give rise to serious concern and require continued vigilance and urgent action," read the introduction  and although no specific mention of Turkey was made, it "condemns and rejects any attempt by third countries to instrumentalise migrants for political purposes."

The Greek Prime Minister said that he recognised the "important role that Turkey has to play in curbing migration flows", and was not opposed  to additional funding under two conditions, but which Turkey must strictly adhere to:

"The first is the avoidance of any instrumentalisation of refugees and immigrants and the second obviously the acceptance of the return to Turkey of people who are currently on the Greek islands and the asylum applications have been finally rejected ".