The European Commission is set to give conditional approval for relaxing visa requirements for Turks. This comes after Ankara threatened to walk away from a migration agreement, unless the bloc eased travel rules for Turkish citizens.

Sources close to the negotiations between Brussels and Ankara said that a meeting of the European Commission on Wednesday will propose easing the visa requirements, as a preparatory meeting on Monday backed the move.

A Turkish official said Greeks and Cypriots will no longer require visas to visit Turkey under the EU-Turkey visa liberalisation deal. Turkey is supposed to fulfil 72 requirements to win the visa liberalisation, and an EU official said last month that Ankara has satisfied fewer than half of them.