Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has confirmed the leaked minutes of a conversation between himself and top European Union officials last year in which he threatens to send buses full of migrants to Europe if a favorable deal on handling the crisis is not reached. NATO's chief says the NATO Maritime Group is being ordered immediately into the Aegean Sea to help end human smuggling of migrants between Turkey and Greece. Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, said Thursday the warships, now under German command, are being tasked to conduct reconnaissance and surveillance to help end Europe's gravest migrant crisis since World War II. The Cabinet-level agreement Thursday ends a spat between Angela Merkel's conservative bloc and the center-left Social Democrats that had held up a reform of asylum rules in Germany. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter says NATO military authorities have been ordered to draw up plans for how the alliance could help shut down illegal migration and people smuggling across the Aegean Sea.
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