"As a first reaction I'm deeply concerned about any arrangement that would involve the blanket return of anyone from one country to another without spelling out the refugee protection safeguards under worldwide law".
Five migrants, including a baby, hoping to reach Europe via Greece drowned when their speedboat capsized off the Turkish coast, Dogan News Agency said on Thursday. "The basic structure of what can be described as the deepening of the partnership between the European Union and Turkey became clearer and was approved by everyone", Merkel said.
He said that Turkey needs "an asylum system that can guarantee protection of refugees rights and the socioeconomic integration of Syrian refugees" before European leaders should consider returning refugees to the country.
Greece and Turkey have been experiencing a "common refugee crisis" , Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said late Tuesday.
Success of the European plan will hinge largely on implementation of a Greek-Turkish readmission agreement to accept the return of migrants not given refugee status.
The meeting was preceded by Monday's EU-Turkey summit that focused on stemming migration flows into the European Union from the Middle East through Turkey.
Greek officials feared that human traffickers could step up their activities before the EU-Turkey plan was implemented, he said.
He said: "It is important that the European Union does not ignore its values in the face of people fleeing war and persecution by simply creating push-backs".
German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized the current situation - exacerbated by Austria's decision to impose new border restrictions last month - as "not durable and sustainable" in an interview broadcast Thursday.
Under the proposals, hammered out at a summit in Brussels on Monday but still to be finalised, all migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey would be sent back.
Government health experts say there is n o sign yet of infectious disease at the camp, but they have been urging people to move to nearby army-built shelters.
United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said he is anxious by increasingly tough European asylum policies, growing anti-refugee rhetoric and attacks on migrants. "We want safety, someone to care for us", said Sameeha Abdullah, one of the group near the beach, who fled Syria's civil war.
But human rights groups are raising the alarm, warning that the program would be damaging to the hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees who are attempting to enter Europe and result in mass deportations.
But its acceptance rate for refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran - at about three percent - is "very low " , Cochetel said.
Almaz Moho, a Syrian Kurd who traveled from Aleppo with her three daughters, one of them an infant born in Istanbul, said they came to Idomeni "because they said the borders are open", but found out otherwise.
Europe has been overwhelmed by the arrival of more than 1 million people in 2015 and more than 140,000 who've entered so far this year, mostly into Greece via Turkey.
Despite news of a provisional deal to halt migration into Greece, more than 13,000 migrants remained stranded at the Greek-Macedonian border yesterday. Clandestine routes are opening again in Hungary, where authorities report more people are breaching the razor-wire fence on its southern border.
Some 14,000 people are camped out near the border town of Idomeni, many in small tents normally used by summer vacationers.
The majority have come by using trafficking networks to cross the Aegean Sea, which separates Turkey and Greece, before heading overland through the Balkans to Germany and other northern European destination countries.
That has put further strain on Europe's Schengen zone of passport-free travel, now on the verge of collapse, deepened rifts between states over the crisis that has already fueled support for far-right parties across the bloc.
Florida confirms state's first case of Zika virus transmitted by sexThe Zika virus is spread to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species or yellow fever mosquito. The CDC first warned on February 12 that Zika could be transmitted by a man to his sex partners.
Source: Turkey won't take back migrants already on Greek islands: minister
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