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Mitarachi said Greece had submitted a request to the European
Commission and EU border agency Frontex for the immediate return
of the migrants, who he said had arrived from Turkey and whose
asylum applications had been rejected.
The move comes ahead of a planned resumption of talks to resolve
longstanding territorial disputes between Greece and Turkey
following months of tensions between the two NATO allies in the
Aegean.
Migrant returns to Turkey, under a 2016 EU-Turkey agreement,
largely dried up last year due to the coronavirus crisis. But
Mitarachi said conditions were now in place for them to resume
thanks to new technology and COVID-19 testing procedures.
"We expect Turkey to step up its efforts ... First, to prevent
the passage of boats departing from its shores bound for our
country and European Union. And second to accept the return of
migrants," Mitarachi said.
He said most of the 1,450 individuals slated for return were on
the island of Lesbos, where a fire last year destroyed the main
camp housing irregular migrants, while others were on the
islands of Kos, Samos and Chios.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees used Greece as
their entry point to Europe through Turkey in 2015 and 2016,
until the deal between Ankara and the EU reduced the flow across
the Greek and Turkish land and sea borders.
Turkey hosts more than three million refugees and migrants, many
from neighbouring Syria, while tens of thousands are waiting in
Greece for asylum applications to be processed, mostly in camps
where conditions have been described as dire.
(Reporting by James Mackenzie, Editing by William Maclean)
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