"Sending them back to Turkey knowing their strong claim to worldwide protection will most likely never be heard reveals European Union claims to respect refugees' human rights as hollow words". Around 1,500 migrants and refugees are stranded at Tabanovc.
The EU deal, which includes €3 billion for Turkey, visa liberalisation for its citizens by the summer, and the opening of accession chapters, is still to be fully endorsed at another summit next week.
Closure of this route would lead to thousands of vulnerable people being left in the cold with no clear plan on how their urgent humanitarian needs and rights to worldwide protection would be dealt with, Amnesty said.
French President Francois Hollande said the European Union could offer more than the current 3 billion euros pledged to Turkey.
It has arranged with Turkey for a "one-in, one-out" exchange: The EU will send back one Syrian who has crossed by sea into Europe and, in return, take in one Syrian through a legal and orderly process.
"An agreement that would be tantamount to a blanket return to a third country is not consistent with European law, not consistent with worldwide law", Vincent Cochetel, Europe regional director of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.
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.
Cyprus's objections are just one of the details that must be thrashed out to turn Turkey's proposals into a final deal at a European summit in Brussels on March 17-18.
He said in a televised address in Turkey: "The prime minister is in Brussels right now".
British Prime Minister David Cameron said that "we do have the basis for a breakthrough which is the possibility that in future all migrants who arrive in Greece will be returned to Turkey".
During a visit to Berlin Tuesday Ban said: "Extreme right-wing and nationalistic political parties are inflaming the situation where we need to be seeking solutions, harmonious solutions based on shared responsibilities". The EU has previously said that any initiative to create such a zone would have to come from the United Nations.
The Europeans hope it will bring order to the chaotic migrant movements of recent months and end the unilateral tightening of borders instigated by some countries.
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.
The proposal could appear particularly unseemly and inappropriate given that it would mean that exhausted refugee families arriving by boat in Greece would be forced back to Turkey where conditions in refugee camps are not good.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras flew directly to the Turkish city from Brussels to attend the talks.
Meanwhile, thousands of migrants are now stuck in Greece since non-EU member Macedonia blocked their passage northward as part of a domino series of border controls established by Balkan countries.
There are significant questions over how, in practice, migrants who had risked their lives and their savings to reach Greece by boat could be coerced on to deportation flights to Turkish camps. The message, they say, is simple: try to cross illegally and get sent straight back.
Speaking via phone from a makeshift refugee camp on the Greek/Macedonia border, Doctors Without Borders (aka Médecins San Frontières, or MSF) told BuzzFeed News the delay was "disappointing" . That effectively shuts the main route through the Balkans toward western Europe.
With discussion on Monday also expected to focus on the Schengen free-travel area, the European Commission yesterday gave EU member states an end-of-year deadline to phase out border checks introduced in the wake of the refugee crisis.
Associated Press writers Raf Casert in Brussels, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Elena Becatoros in Idomeni, Greece, and Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade contributed.
Ben Affleck on directing a standalone movieAfter the events that went down in the battle of Metropolis, Batman surely wouldn't just let someone he thinks as a villain go. In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , out March 25, Batman-aka Batfleck-has a new and super swanky, tricked-out Batmobile.
Source: UNHCR Concerned over EU-Turkey Plan to Ease Migrant Crisis
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