By Nektaria Stamouli 

NEW YORK -- Greece's prime minister called on his European partners to stick to their obligations and help Athens manage the migration crisis despite the political cost, or else risk the future of the union.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Alexis Tsipras singled out Germany as his most important ally in helping Greece manage the flow of people streaming from the Middle East and North Africa into Europe, even as Mr. Tsipras and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are at odds on the terms of Greece's financial bailout.

Ms. Merkel's popularity has slumped amid mounting criticism of her open-arm policy of welcoming refugees to Germany.

"Angela Merkel pays the internal cost of the brave decision that she took last year," Mr. Tsipras said. "But Merkel took a decision as a European leader. Otherwise, Europe would be absolutely divided."

Greece found itself at the forefront of the European Union's migration crisis, as thousands of asylum seekers poured across the Aegean Sea before heading to Europe's most affluent countries.

Europe's strategy for deterring mass migration -- a deal with Turkey to return new arrivals -- as well as the closure of Balkan borders to the north led to a sharp drop in arrivals from thousands to about a hundred a day.

Still, more than 60,000 people find themselves trapped in Greece, while Greece has so far been slow in returning the migrants to Turkey.

"So far the rhythm of the returns has been less than the rhythm of the flows," Mr. Tsipras said. "But we have to implement the agreement in the frame of international regulation. We have to examine one by one, ad hoc, every asylum request."

The Greek premier urged the other European countries to hold fast to their obligations and accelerate the relocation process from Greece. He also called on governments not to adopt xenophobic and extremist agendas, despite the rising popularity of far right political parties in Europe.

"If under the pressure of the extreme right and populism, we give space to them we will lose everything," Mr. Tsipras said. "If you use their agenda, the people at the end of the day will not prefer you; they will prefer them because people prefer the original."

While the German chancellor and the Greek premier have teamed up on handling Europe's migration policy, the two leaders' agendas differ on dealing with Greece's financial crisis.

Athens is battling to secure debt relief from its international creditors. This is seen as anathema among the German public, as Berlin's leadership looks toward elections next year. "This is not fair, every country in the EU has elections," Mr. Tsipras said. "I respect Germany's internal problems and I'm very concerned about it, but I don't think it's a strong argument."

The International Monetary Fund, which has given its green light to the bailout program but is yet to disburse any funds for it, said it needs concrete debt-relief measures before it coughs up more cash for Greece. It said it will decide to resume financing after the other creditors decide on terms of the debt relief program.

"After seven years for the first time the dilemma is not in our field," Mr. Tsipras said. "The issue is not that the lazy Greeks have not delivered. The dilemma is for Germany and other countries that want the IMF in any case in the program," he said.

"So they have to decide: They will either have the IMF on board and specify concrete measures, or they will have to live with the idea that the IMF will not be on board and they will have to explain to their people how they will continue without that," he said.

Mr. Tsipras said the country's second creditors' review of the bailout program will be completed by the end of October, and then debt relief measures will be specified by the end of 2016. Greece will then be included in the European Central Bank's quantitative-easing program.

"Participation in the QE will be the key to attract investors," Mr. Tsipras said. "Everybody will understand that 'Grexit' has passed, that the crisis is over."

The Greek premier said the decision to sign the third bailout agreement last summer after months of acrimonious negotiations with the country's international creditors was a difficult dilemma for him.

However, he said, the process of the negotiations provided a valuable lesson both to Greece and the international community. "We tried to gain something that was impossible for our partners to offer. Not because our demands and arguments were not fair -- they were fair enough -- but because the balances [of power] were bad for us."

He added that this fight was useful because it changed the way other countries saw the Greeks.

Before the fight, he said, the feeling was that Greek people "were the lazy ones, they have to pay, they have to learn to live according to their standards. Now the feeling is that the Greek people have suffered a lot, they have done a lot."

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 22, 2016 22:41 ET (02:41 GMT)