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BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — The Latest on Europe's migration issues (all times local):
1:00 p.m.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has warned that Europe risks facing a "huge regional" refugee problem if a deal with Turkey to stem the flow of migrants collapses.
Turkey is demanding that the European Union ease visa restrictions for Turkish citizens and has threatened not to implement an agreement with the EU to take back refugees. Turkey is also demanding that the EU deliver promised funds to help Turkey improve conditions for close to 3 million Syrian refugees.
Yildirim said if the visa-waver deal and the agreement for the refugee's return are not implemented, "the refugee issue will not remain within Turkey's borders, it risks turning into a huge regional problem that will concern the whole of Europe."
Plans to loosen visa restrictions have run into trouble over Turkey's refusal to amend its anti-terror laws at a time when it is fighting heightened threats from the Kurdish rebels and the Islamic State group.
Yildirim was speaking in Istanbul during a joint news conference with his visiting Bulgarian counterpart.
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9:55 a.m.
Romanian border police say they are investigating more than two dozen migrants on suspicion of illegally crossing into Romania from Serbia.
Police said in a statement they detected the group — 26 adults, a 10-month-old baby and a 3-year-old child — shortly after midnight Friday in southwest Romania, by using heat-detecting equipment.
They said they detained a Serbian man who was later spotted heading toward the Serbian border on the same route the migrants had used. He is suspected of being a guide for the 27 Syrians and an Iraqi citizen.
Police say 600 migrants have tried to illegally cross into Romania this year, about 40 percent less than for the same period in 2015.
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9:50 a.m.
Hungary's prime minister says the country will build a new "massive" fence on its southern borders to defend against a possible surge in the number of migrants.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who earlier said migrants were "poison," said Friday on state radio that there may soon be a "greater need for security" and the fortified barrier would be able to stop "several hundreds of thousands of people," if needed. He did not say when construction could start.
Orban said the surge could take place if, for example, Turkey allows the millions of refugees living there to leave for Western Europe.
Hungary built fences protected with razor wire on its southern borders with Serbia and Croatia last year, when nearly 400,000 people passed through the country on their way west.
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