On February 11, defense ministers of the 28 NATO member states decided to send alliance's naval ships to the Aegean Sea to monitor the flow of migrants between Turkey and Greece.
"NATO took swift decisions to deploy ships to the Aegean Sea to support our Allies Greece and Turkey, as well as the EU's border agency FRONTEX, in their efforts to tackle the migrant and refugee crisis. NATO ships are already collecting information and conducting monitoring in the Aegean Sea. Their activity will now be expanded to take place also in territorial waters," Stoltenberg said, as quoted in a press release published on NATO website said.
The EU states are currently struggling to deal with a refugee influx, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Frontex recorded more than 1.8 million illegal border crossings into the bloc in 2015. Greece is the main transit route for refugees coming across the Aegean Sea from Turkey.
