EU’s Tusk: Detain migrants for up to 18 months

Under the terms of the deal, the European Union will provide three billion euros, or $3.2 billion dollars, in aid for the approximately 2.2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.

“The reasons for the slowdown in the number of arrivals have to do with fluctuating climate conditions in the Aegean but also a crackdown on smuggling by Turkish authorities”, Spindler said. More than 600,000 have entered through Greece, many after making the short sea crossing from Turkey.

“Ever since September, we have seen the Turkish authorities detaining scores of refugees, often completely incommunicado, and forcibly returning them to neighboring Syria and Iraq”.

Campaign group Amnesty International said in a statement the move is “illegal as it is unconscionable”.

“In the wake of this weekend’s EU-Turkey migration talks, it’s a stain on the EU’s conscience too”, said Andrew Gardner, Amnesty’s Turkey researcher. “It doesn’t have a functioning asylum process”.

He said: “It is not unrealistic to say we could reach 1million by the end of the year”.

It was not clear if the Monday’s sweep was directly related to the Turkish commitment to help contain the flow of migrants and officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Another concern is that Turkey will try to restrict the flow of people entering the country, since it is unable to let out the millions it has already in the country.

Referring to the people stranded on the Greek border with Macedonia, Tidey said: “They are living in extremely poor conditions with inadequate shelter, people are sleeping sometimes 30 to 40 inside of a tent to keep warm”.

He continued, “But absence of a reference to human rights in the EU-Turkey summit joint statement yesterday and recent remarks from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker that the EU should not “harp” on Turkey’s rights record do not bode well”. The EU is also discussing plans for resettling hundreds of thousands of refugees from Turkey in the future.