EU Offers Turkey 'Action Plan' on Migration Crisis
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Europe has launched a push at the fourth EU summit this year on the refugee crisis to obtain Turkey’s cooperation in stemming the flow of hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants, media reports said.
EU leaders agreed on Thursday to give “political support” for an action plan for Turkey said to offer Ankara up to €3bn (£2.2bn), visa-free travel to Europe for 75 million Turks, the resumption of frozen negotiations on Turkey’s EU membership bid, and other sweeteners in what appeared to be a desperate attempt to gain Turkish cooperation, The Guardian reported.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, said that the aim of the proposed pact was to keep more than two million Syrian refugees in Turkey where they were and prevent them attempting to get to Europe.
Diplomats said the €3bn were not available, however, and that there was much resistance among national leaders to fast-tracking visa waivers for the Turks. Discussions in Ankara will continue in coming days.
The European Council president, Donald Tusk, said “an agreement with Turkey makes sense only if it effectively contains the flow of refugees.”
Senior officials and diplomats said the main aim of the summit was to avoid a major row and the kind of recrimination between leaders that characterized previous meetings. The summit took place in an atmosphere of gloom and tension.
Scores of asylum seekers have died making the perilous Aegean Sea crossing from Turkey to Greece.
The International Organization for Migration says more than 600,000 asylum seekers have landed on Europe's shores since January, while more than 3,000 have died or gone missing trying to reach Europe.
