Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said his country has suspended the refugee agreement with Greece in retaliation for the release of the 8 Turkish soldiers by the Greek justice system. According to reports, the suspension concerns the readmission of refugees entering Greece back into Turkey and not the general EU-Turkey refugee agreement.

Responding to a reporter’s question, Mr Cavusoglu said: “In Greece, the government really wants to solve this situation (8 Turkish officers), but at the same time we see that Greece is under very serious pressure from the West. Even more so the Greek judges. But we know they have a lot of pressure from the West, there is an immigration agreement with the EU and we have a bilateral readmission agreement with Greece, we have stopped the readmission agreement and will continue our work with Greece”