ATHENS — Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is expected to reiterate on Thursday at the European Council meeting in Brussels the need for Turkey to show consistency and continuation in the direction of de-escalation in the eastern Mediterranean and and to avoid actions that would provoke a setback both in the Greek-Turkish and in the Euro-Turkish relations.

Government sources said that the Greek side supports the promotion of a positive agenda in the Euro-Turkish relations in a gradual, proportional and reversible way and if Turkey shows a constructive attitude as is has been reflected in the results of last March's European Council, something that remains to be reaffirmed by the European leaders.

Regarding the revision of the Customs Unions, what is important at this phase is the right implementation of the existing one before all the EU member states.

Addditionally, Mitsotakis' position remains clear on the migration/refugee issue that the problem should not be instrumentalised against third countries.

On Turkey's funding, Athens supports the financing of refugees programmes for humanitarian reasons, however, Turkey should control the trafficker rings, manage the flows and implement the EU-Turkey agreement.

The acceptance of the return of 1,450 people whose petition for asylum has been rejected would be a positive step towards this direction.