ANKARA (Sputnik) — On Friday, Brussels and Ankara struck a deal, which will see all migrants arriving illegally from Turkey to Greece starting from March 20 returned back. In exchange, the EU will resettle thousands of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey.
The EU-Turkey agreement is due to take effect on Sunday. As part of the deal, the European Union pledged to speed up the allocation of 3 billion euros to Turkey to help it deal with the undocumented migrants. An additional 3 billion euro in assistance to Ankara can be given by 2018.
"We have accepted about 3 million Syrian refugees and spent more than $10 billion on the admission of refugees to date. At the same time, the EU provides only 3 billion euros [$3.3 billion]. During the next 15 days, all the migrants who are in Greece will be returned to Turkey," Cavusoglu said at a press conference in Ankara.