EU-Turkey Deal 'on Edge of International Law' - Lithuanian President

The European Union's migration deal with Turkey is difficult implement and is on the fringes of international law, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The president's remarks come ahead of the two-day European Council meeting starting on Thursday, where EU member state leaders are expected to discuss further steps in resolving the European migrant crisis. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is due to join the summit on Friday, with the Turkey-EU deal on migration set to be finalized then.

"Hopefully, we will agree on something today. I think the preconditions were agreed already a week before, we are negotiating around these conditions. I understand and also support part of the criticism, because I think that the proposed package is very complicated, will be very difficult to implement and it is on the edge of international law," Grybauskaite said when arriving for a European Council meeting.

On March 7, Europe and Ankara agreed on a deal under which Turkey pledged to take back all undocumented migrants that had arrived to the European Union in exchange for Syrian refugees on a one-for-one basis. In return, the European Union pledged to provide a total of 3 billion euros (over $3.3 billion) to Turkey for dealing with refugees, with a possible further 3 billion-euro provision, accelerate Turkey's EU accession process and introduce a visa-free regime between Turkey and Europe.

Earlier on Thursday, a diplomatic source in Brussels told RIA Novosti that the acceleration of the negotiations on Turkey's accession to the European Union was opposed by all the bloc's member states.

Europe is beset by a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The EU border agency Frontex detected over 1.83 million illegal border crossings in 2015.