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A mission to stop people smugglers taking migrants from Turkey to Greece will not turn boats back, said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

"We will not turn back the boats with the migrants and the refugees" and "if we are close to people in distress we will help them, of course," he said.

NATO vessels in the Aegean Sea are there to give local border police and coastguards vital surveillance information, Mr Stoltenberg said.

(Picture: Migrants. Credit: AFP/Getty images)