Germany wants migrants sent back to Greece, Turkey

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ATHENS: Germany called Sunday for asylum seekers who entered the European Union via Greece to be forced to return there, while also urging Athens to send more migrants back to Turkey.

In an interview with a Greek daily, German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said he wants to reinstate EU rules which oblige asylum seekers to be sent back to Greece as the first EU country they reached.

“I would like the Dublin convention to be applied again we will take up discussions on this in a meeting with (EU) interior ministers” later in October, he told the Greek daily Kathimerini.

The Dublin accord gives responsibility for asylum seekers’ application to the first country they reach which put Greece on the frontline of more than a million migrants who arrived in the EU last year.—APP