Prime ministers of Greece, Italy meet on Corfu

ATHENS, Greece – The prime ministers of Greece and Italy have stressed that European countries should share the burden of dealing with migration.

Italy’s Paolo Gentiloni and his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras spoke Thursday on the western Greek island of Corfu, where talks also included the financial crisis and the European Union’s relations with Turkey.

Tsipras said such crises should be handled with solidarity and shared responsibility rather than “with fences and exclusions that undermine our European values.”

Gentiloni said the two would raise the issue at an October meeting of southern European countries in Cyprus.

“The message must be to update the rules we have because it is fair to stress once again that the burden of this phenomenon cannot be taken only by few countries such as Italy and Greece,” he said.