The Latest: Denmark wants to make UN refugee quota flexible

ISTANBUL (AP) - The Latest on the flow of migrants into Europe (all times local):

1:50 p.m.

Denmark's minority center-right government says it wants to make the U.N. refugee quota system "flexible" for the country.

Integration Minister Inger Stoejberg says Denmark has accepted about 500 such refugees every year since 1989.

Stoejberg, considered an immigration hardliner, said Saturday that Denmark "doesn't want to commit ourselves" and "I don't believe we have room for quota refugees this year."

She said Denmark had received about 56,000 spontaneous asylum-seekers since 2012 and many of them are expected to try to bring relatives. She said that those already in Denmark should be integrated first.

The anti-immigration Danish People's Party, which backs the government, supports the law proposal.

Denmark received about 20,000 asylum-seekers in 2015, a small number compared with its Swedish and German neighbors.

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1:15 p.m.

Turkish authorities say 40 Syrian migrants have been stopped from illegally crossing to Greece.

Turkey's coast guard says the migrants, among them 18 children, were stopped Friday morning off the western province of Izmir.

In footage filmed from a coast guard boat, the group is seen in a rubber dinghy. As the coast guard vessel approaches, one man lifts and then briefly lowers a small child toward the sea, while another man raises his arms in prayer. The coast guard then pulls in the dinghy and transfers the migrants to its boat.

Turkey and the European Union signed a deal last year to curb the illegal flow of migrants to Greece. Turkey is host to more than 3 million Syrians who have fled the ongoing civil war in their country.