GAZIANTEP: Turkey’s prime minister said the number of migrants crossing into Greece illegally has dropped considerably, as proof that a much criticized migration deal between Turkey and the European Union is working.

Ahmet Davutolgu was speaking at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top European Union officials who traveled near Turkey’s border with Syria in a bid to promote the troubled deal with Turkey as they face increasing pressure to reassess the agreement. The group toured a refugee camp and inaugurated a child support center funded by the EU.

Meanwhile, former Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who chairs EU summits, visited a refugee camp at Gaziantep near the Syrian border with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Speaking to media persons, he said press freedom was a “permanent topic” of his talks with Turkish leaders which have produced the deal under which Turkey is taking back all refugees and migrants who reach Greek islands in return for concessions from the European Union. Recalling his own jailing in the 1980s for opposing Poland’s communist government, Tusk recalled that Erdogan, too, had been imprisoned in 1999 for criticizing Turkey’s then rulers.

“Thirty years ago, I was imprisoned for being critical of the regime,” Tusk said late on Saturday. Criticism of Turkey in Europe poses an obstacle to the deal struck by EU leaders with Ankara last month because approval of the EU’s side of the bargain, notably waiving visas for Turkish travelers by June, requires support in the European Parliament.

Tusk said: “As a politician, I have learned and accepted to have a thick skin and I have no expectation that the press will treat me with special care; quite the opposite. “And the line between criticism, insult and defamation is very thin and relative. The moment politicians begin to decide which is which can mean the end of the freedom of expression, in Europe, in Turkey, in Africa, in Russia, everywhere.”

Tusk has also flayed Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as his right-wing successors in Poland, whose moves to curb the independence of the public broadcaster have prompted inquiries from the EU.