The EU is close to a deal with Ankara that would see all non-Syrian migrants reaching Greek islands returned to Turkey, marking a crucial step in the bloc’s hardening stance against the flow of people pouring into its territories.
After weeks of diplomatic pressure from Berlin and Brussels, Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish prime minister, privately signalled in negotiations yesterday that Ankara would accept the systematic return of non-Syrians and step up action against smugglers.
Although the agreement is tentative, the terms could mark a long-sought turning point in Europe’s migration crisis, giving a harder edge to a strategy that has largely failed to dent flow of people across the Aegean Sea.