PARIS: EU leaders have pleaded with Turkey’s authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to join forces behind a radical plan aimed at stemming the flow of hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants to Europe.
The Europeans are offering eventually to take half a million Syrians from new refugee and asylum-processing camps they would co-fund in Turkey in return for Ankara tightening its borders to stop people being smuggled in hazardous vessels to Greece, and agreeing to take back migrants who make it “illegally” to Europe via Turkey.
As part of any possible pact, Erdoğan pressed for a relaxation in visa requirements for Turks travelling to Europe. He also wants the EU to list Turkey as “a safe third country”, effectively whitewashing Ankara’s increasingly repressive policies and deteriorating human rights and media freedoms record.
“Europe has to manage its borders better. We expect Turkey to do the same,” said Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, following talks with Erdogan. “The situation where hundreds of thousands are fleeing to the European Union from Turkey must be stopped.”
Erdoğan responded that Ankara was hosting almost 10 times as many Syrian refugees as the EU. While open to talks with Brussels, he said the key to stopping the flow of refugees was to establish a no-fly zone over the Turkish-Syria border and a buffer zone in northern Syria. This is viewed as a non-starter in Europe and in Washington, but Tusk said: “The European Union is ready to take up all issues with Turkey so we can also discuss a possible buffer zone in Syria.”
Erdoğan came to Brussels at a time of unusual political vulnerability at home, but holding most of the cards in the migration crisis and intending to extract a high price for agreeing to a new plan hatched by Germany and the European commission.
