EU leaders yesterday were to try to thrash out solutions to the continent’s spiraling migrant crisis and step up a diplomatic offensive aimed at winning Turkey’s help in stemming the flow of Syrian refugees.
The summit was to focus on working with countries outside Europe’s borders to help tackle the worst crisis of its kind since World War II.
The leaders were also discuss creating a possible safe zone in the north of war-torn Syria.
The key issue was efforts to get a reluctant Turkey’s approval for an EU plan to assist it in hosting more than 2 million refugees, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel heading to the country on Sunday for talks.
Merkel yesterday said in Berlin that Turkey plays a key role in solving the “historic task” of dealing with Europe’s migrant crisis and that the EU should do more to help Ankara deal with the influx of refugees.
Addressing the Bundestag lower house of parliament before attending the EU summit in Brussels, Merkel said a joint European effort was required to tackle the influx.
“Without a doubt Turkey plays a key role in this situation,” she said. “Most war refugees who come to Europe travel via Turkey. We won’t be able to order and stem the refugee movement without working together with Turkey.”
This included giving Turkey more support in caring for the refugees and providing humanitarian aid, as well as helping to secure borders and combat criminal smuggling rings, she said.
Merkel said the conflict in Syria is the biggest cause of the migrant flows to Europe.
“To stabilize the situation in this country, so terribly afflicted by terror and violence, and to bring it peace in the long-term of course we need a process of political dialogue which includes Russia and other international actors, including regional actors,” she said.
EU Vice-President Frans Timmermans and other senior officials arrived in Turkey on Wednesday to push the Turkish government on the plan, having postponed their visit after deadly suicide attacks in Ankara on the weekend.
“An agreement with — and concessions to — Turkey only make sense if it effectively reduces the influx of migrants,” European Council President Donald Tusk said as he prepared to host the summit.
European leaders hope that helping refugees inside Turkey, giving it money and aiding the country to improve its coast guard will discourage Syrian refugees from taking perilous sea and land routes into the continent.
However, Turkey wants more cash and rejects proposals for more migrant camps.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was in Brussels last week, wants more EU cooperation for his fight against “terrorism,” which is aimed at Kurdish separatists and the Islamic State group.
Tusk said that the EU summit would also discuss “complex” issues “including [the] question of [a] safe zone in Syria. Turkey wants it. Russia is openly against.”
Turkey has called for a safe area and no-fly zone in northern Syria that would be free from both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and the Islamic State group, but EU countries are “skeptical,” diplomats say, especially after Russia launched military action in Syria.
“It’s a real dilemma — and the intervention of Russia and Iran makes the situation even more difficult,” a European diplomat said.
The shadow of Russia’s involvement there will hang heavy over the summit, with EU leaders set to warn that the air strikes against what Moscow insists are Islamic State militants will only cause more chaos.
“The European Council expressed its concern about the Russian attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians and the risk of further military escalation,” draft summit conclusions said.
The conclusions are also set to say that there “cannot be a lasting peace” under the al-Assad regime, although they will not specifically state whether al-Assad himself could be part of a political transition.
With no end in sight to Syria’s four-year war, the EU has been toughening its stance in recent months over the flow of migrants.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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