The head of the UN refugee agency yesterday said he was “deeply concerned” by a proposed deal between the EU and Ankara to curb the migrant crisis that would involve people being sent back to Turkey.
“As a first reaction, I’m deeply concerned about any arrangement that would involve the blanket return of anyone from one country to another without spelling out the refugee protection safeguards under international law,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi told the European Parliament.
EU leaders on Monday hailed a “breakthrough” in talks with Turkey on a deal to curb the migrant crisis, but delayed a decision until a summit next week to flesh out the details of Ankara’s new demands.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu stunned his 28 EU counterparts in Brussels when he suddenly asked for an extra 3 billion euros (US$3.3 billion) in aid and visa-free travel for Turks to the bloc by June.
In return, he proposed to take back all illegal migrants landing on the overstretched Greek islands, and suggested a one-for-one deal under which the EU would resettle one Syrian refugee from camps in Turkey in exchange for every Syrian that Turkey takes from Greece.
After EU leaders “warmly welcomed” Turkey’s proposals, EU President Donald Tusk said he would now work on the legal details to reach a final deal at a European summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday next week.
“We, all of us, are aware that in fact we have a breakthrough now,” he told a post-summit press conference.
Tusk, who toured Turkey, Greece and the Balkans in the run-up to the summit, said it was a major step in ending the continent’s biggest migration crisis since World War II.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel — who has been the strongest proponent of a deal with Turkey, partly to offset the impact of her own open-door asylum policy — gave cautious backing to the deal.
“It is a breakthrough if it becomes reality,” she told reporters.
Muslim-majority Turkey is the main launching point for the more than 1 million migrants who have made the dangerous crossing over the Aegean Sea to the Greek islands since the start of last year. It hosts 2.7 million refugees from the five-year civil war in neighboring Syria, more than any other country.
Ankara has nevertheless proved a difficult partner, failing to honor an earlier 3 billion euro deal with the EU in November last year and continually pushing Turkey’s long-stalled EU membership bid.
However, Davutoglu surprised EU leaders on Monday by offering to take all irregular migrants from Greece, a step that would relieve the pressure on debt-hit Athens and the whole of the EU.
He said the one-for-one Syrian refugee swap deal was “game-changing” and denied that Turkey was “demanding” money, urging the world to share the burden of hosting Syrian refugees.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS