Athens worried over Brussels attacks' effects on refugee deal

Tuesday's twin terrorist attacks in Brussels could not have come at a worse time in terms of the ongoing Mideast refugee crisis plaguing Greece, only three days after yet another EU-Turkey summit yielded an agreement that is reportedly not being implemented as rapidly as Athens wants.

The Greek government has not hidden its concerns that neighboring Turkey is dragging its feet in implementing the agreement, which amongst others, calls for the repatriation of people that are deemed as irregular migrants - mostly third world citizens using Turkish territory to reach the west European job markets via Greece.

At press time, the leftist government said 53,000 Mideast war refugees and well as “other migrants” were stranded in various parts of the country, with a sizable portion still camped out on the northern Greek border post of Idomeni and thousands stills sheltered in the port of Piraeus’ passenger terminals.

Concerns were heightened that the agreement will suffer due to the terrorist strikes.

According to reliable sources quoted by “N”, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras personally spoke by phone with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday to express his government’s displeasure over the fact that an Alliance mission in the eastern Aegean is not producing desired results, and that the arrival of refugees and other third country nationals from the opposite Turkey coast is continuing unabated.

The NATO secretary general reportedly assured Tsipras that the situation will improve over the next few days.

Although nothing has been publicly aired so far by Greek officials, there is increasing concern in Athens that the Brussels attacks will delay or even cancel plans to relocate refugees now in Greece and Turkey to other parts of Europe. 

naftemporiki.gr