Rome, Sep 24 (IANS/AKI) European Union migrants will be redistributed around the bloc "within four weeks" of arrival and the states that receive them will process their requests for asylum and deport those whose applications fail, Italy's Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese said on Monday.

The agreement was reached by Lamorgese and her counterparts from France, Malta and Germany on Monday at a meeting in Valletta and will next have to be put to other EU Interior Ministers on October 7-8.

The ministers also proposed that the ports at which Mediterranean migrants are landed could rotate.

"This is a first concrete step towards joint European action on migration," said Lamorgese.

--IANS/AKI
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