NIKOSIA (dpa-AFX) – EU Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas wants to travel to Turkey at the beginning of March to talk to Ankara about the high influx of refugees to Cyprus. Schinas said on Monday during a visit to the Cyprus capital, Nicosia. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johannsson, who video-connected to the meeting with Cypriot Interior Minister Nikos Nouris, pledged that the EU would help Cyprus to process asylum applications and to house and repatriate migrants. The EU asylum agency, the EU border protection agency Frontex and Europol are also to be used.
Measured against the number of inhabitants, Cyprus has the highest number of asylum applications of all EU countries. On the divided island, people pass through the Turkish-occupied north to the south of the Republic of Cyprus, where they can apply for asylum under EU laws. The dividing line between the halves of the island is the Achilles’ heel, said Interior Minister Nikos Nouris. In the north of Cyprus, migrants from Turkey arrive daily by sea, but also by plane. Then gangs of smugglers would bring people across the dividing line to the south of the island./tt/DP/eas