Greek PM Alexis Tsipras expressed his satisfaction about the cooperation between Greece and Turkey on the refugee crisis during his meeting with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the UN Humanitarian Summit held in Turkey, Monday. ‘The Greek-Turkish collaboration based on the on the EU-Turkey agreement is very good and we look forward to reinforcing it even more’, said the Greek PM.

Tsipras pointed out that the conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan exacerbated the refugee flows, adding that neigbouring countries shouldered most of the burden. The Greek PM went on to criticise the stance of some EU member-states on the crisis regarding their reluctance to abide by the relocation scheme agreed upon.

‘Since last year fewer than 1,000 people had been relocated from Greece to other European countries, despite promises for tens of thousands of relocations, while there was still no permanent relocation procedure from Turkey to EU countries’, he said. Tsipras also lauded the role NATO patrol ships played in stemming the flow of refugees entering Greece.