MOSCOW (Sputnik) — An EU-Turkey pact to send all irregular migrants coming ashore in Greece back to Turkey took effect on March 20. Ankara was promised political concessions and relocation of Syrians from its border refugee camps.
"By enforcing the EU-Turkey agreement on refugee policy on March 20, 2016 we achieved a drastic reduction in the numbers of refugees coming from across the Aegean Sea," Steffen Seibert said on a Twitter feed that presented official figures.
"Just as we hoped, this agreement has significantly contributed to cutting the ground from under the illegal [human] smuggling, which helps save people’s lives," he concluded.
Seibert said the Aegean was the main route for hundreds of thousands of war refugees and economic migrants seeking to enter Europe. The closure of the Greek-Macedonian border in February had only a temporary effect on the refugee stream to Germany and Austria, he added.
