Turkey claims some successes, but migrant flows to Europe persist

By Nick Tattersall and Tom Miles ISTANBUL/GENEVA (Reuters) - For a few days this week, officials in Turkey, Greece and Europe wondered if there might finally be signs of progress in their efforts to stem the flow of refugees and migrants pouring onto Lesbos. Only around 10 to 20 boats, each carrying some 50 tired and hungry people, have arrived on the Greek island in the past few days, far fewer than the thousands of people a day who had been crossing the narrow sea channel from Turkey just a few weeks earlier. Rougher waters were deterring migrants from attempting the journey, locals and aid workers said. Some put the drop in numbers down to the Turkish coastguard launching more small inflatable boats to collect refugees. Turkish officials suggested the arrest of dozens of suspected ring-leaders of human trafficking networks over the past two months might be starting to bear fruit, while the island’s mayor, Spiros Galinos, said the flow was now "manageable" and put it largely down to the weather. But the International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned on Friday it was too soon to talk of a sustained downturn. "We’re not prepared to say there’s been a significant drop off even though for a few days this week the numbers fell to just the low three figures," Joel Millman, a spokesman for the IOM, told a regular U.N. briefing in Geneva. "A lot of people thought 'does that mean there has been a break?' Not necessarily," he said, adding levels overall were back where they were at the start of the month and in parts of October. Greece has been the first port of call for migrants streaming into Europe in greater numbers that at any time since World War Two. Many are fleeing conflict in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, and pass through Turkey, itself home to the world's largest refugee population of more than 2.2 million. An EU-Turkey summit in Brussels on Sunday aims to finalise an action plan which could see Turkey receive 3 billion euros (2.12 billion pound) in EU aid and the chance of an acceleration in its long-stalled EU membership bid. Prospects for a grand bargain are uncertain though, with Turkey holding out for the best possible deal. TARGETING THE SMUGGLERS Political bargaining aside, Ankara is eager to show willing. The security forces have apprehended more than 200 suspected people smugglers and dismantled key trafficking networks, government officials say, while its coastguard has rescued almost 80,000 migrants since the start of the year. "Essentially it is a combination of a couple of things. It's the weather. It's a lot more risky right now to go anywhere by boat and a lot of people have small children," a Turkish government official said when asked about the dip in the numbers of arrivals on Lesbos this week. "We've also been cracking down on the human trafficking networks," the official said, adding "major bosses", both Turkish and Syrian, were among those detained. "It has been happening for a couple of months ... You catch the top guy, then the second guy takes over and you need to catch him. So it takes time, but when it kicks in, it does have an effect." EU officials have said Turkey has been "trying out" new ways of stopping migrants, particularly by targeting smugglers, and that initial impression suggest they have had some success. "There has been some lowering of the numbers coming to Greece but it is too soon to see any pattern or to tell why," one senior EU official who has been involved in negotiations with Turkey told Reuters. Ankara has long argued that the only sustainable way to slow the migrant flows to Europe is to find a political solution to the war in Syria, or at least to create a "safe zone" for displaced civilians inside its borders. But the proposal, which would require an internationally-enforced no-fly zone in Syria, has failed to gain much traction with Turkey's Western allies, who see it as an expensive and militarily-complex operation which would risk their deeper entanglement in an already complex war. Human Rights Watch said in a report this week that Turkey had all but closed its doors to Syrian migrants and that those still entering were using smugglers, which could help explain the drop in numbers. Refugees from Syria attempting to get to Europe have also complained of being taken to camps near Turkey's border with Syria against their will. The head of Turkey's disaster management agency told Reuters this month that Turkey was encouraging displaced civilians to remain in Syria and supporting aid camps there, but made clear it did not intend to shut its borders. The government official also said there was no change in Turkey's "open border" policy to refugees from Syria. (Additional reporting by Dasha Afanasieva and Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Karolina Tagaris in Athens, Paul Taylor in Brussels; Writing by Nick Tattersall)