Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar an EU summit — dealing with the surge of migrants and refugees over the so-called Western Balkans route — has sent "a very clear message to all traffickers and all irregular migrants that this route no longer exists, it is closed." The two leaders will head talks Tuesday at a joint meeting of cabinet ministers, hours after a European Union summit in Brussels outlined a deal that would see migrants being sent back from EU-member Greece to Turkey on a larger scale. Success of the European plan outlined early Tuesday will hinge largely on implementation of a Greek-Turkish readmission agreement to accept the return of migrants not given refugee status. Before leaving Brussels, Tsipras said: "Our talks continue in Izmir, where I believe we will have a historic meeting, with a decision to amend the readmission agreement that sees Turkey take back all migrants who are not entitled to protection under international treaties." The U.N. refugee agency is expressing concern about a possible deal between the European Union and Turkey including the prospect of "blanket returns" of refugees from the bloc to Turkey. Amid concerns in Europe about illegal migration into the continent, Cochetel said he was "tired of hearing about irregular migrants" because 91 percent of those arriving in Greece are from war-torn countries like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Disease control experts have been sent to a refugee camp at the Greek-Macedonian border, but Greece's Health Ministry says the measure is largely precautionary. "There is a large number of children and young women and pregnant women that require attention," said Yiannis Baskozos, general secretary of Health Ministry. Giorgos Kyritsis, a spokesman for an emergency government committee set up last week to deal with the migrant crisis, said authorities were concerned that more people would try to reach the sprawling border camp at Idomeni after European Union leaders and Turkey reached an outline agreement which would close the border.
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