No chance Balkan route will reopen: Alexis Tsipras

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Tuesday there was “no chance” border shutdowns throughout the Balkans would be lifted and urged refugees to move to reception centres set up by the state.

“Unilateral actions countries on the Balkan route were not taken by accident and we believe there is no chance that those who shut the route will reopen it,” Mr Tsipras said.

The Balkan route has been the main passage into northern Europe for hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees.

Meanwhile, Cypriot Pre-sident Nicos Anastasiades said on Tuesday that his country will not accept the European Union’s mi-gration deal with Turkey without concessions from Ankara in the dispute over the Mediterranean island.

“Cyprus does not intend to consent to the opening of any new chapters if Turkey does not fulfil its obligations,” Mr Anastasiades said after talks with EU president Donald Tusk, who said “the key question of legality” still needed to be sorted out for the deal.

To overcome differences between the two nations, Mr Tusk will fly to Turkey on Tuesday after meeting the Cypriot leader.

An EU spokesman announced the short-notice meeting in Ankara with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu while Mr Tusk was in talks in Nicosia with Mr Anastasiades, ahead of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday.

EU leaders will meet on Thursday to agree a common position on the deal, first proposed to them by Mr Davutoglu a week ago. Some praise it as a potential game-changer in the bloc’s problems managing the flow of refugees and migrants via Turkey, but it faces both legal and practical challenges.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, some 700 refugees and migrants were being held in Macedonia after they managed to slip across the border from Greece, a frontier that has been shut for a week.