Turkey to Press Europe for Refugee Payoff as Migrant Fears Grow
Turkey to Press Europe for Refugee Payoff as Migrant Fears Grow
(Bloomberg) -- Alarmed by a rising number of migrants reaching Europe, top EU officials will hold talks in Turkey on Thursday over Ankara’s demand it receive greater rewards in return for stemming the flow of refugees, as well as its plan to move millions of Syrians back home.
The interior ministers of France and Germany are scheduled to meet their Turkish counterpart, along with Greece’s migration minister, and the European Union’s migration commissioner following an uptick of refugees reaching Greek islands from Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to channel more migrants into Europe if the EU doesn’t do more to share the burden of hosting the world’s largest refugee population, including 3.6 million Syrians who fled the civil war.
The swell of asylum seekers is a sign of trouble in the arrangements hashed out with Turkey that staunched the flow of arrivals during the crisis of 2015 and 2016. A new influx, even if far smaller, could stir up trouble for European leaders like Germany’s Angela Merkel who suffered from the populist backlash against her open-door policy.
A total of 763 refugees have arrived at Greek islands, including Lesbos, Chios and Kos, so far this week, according to official figures, bringing the total to 30,644, up from 24,735 at the end of August.
Erdogan is driving a hard bargain, demanding visa-free travel for Turkish citizens to Europe in return for keeping refugees within his country, and international support for his plan to root out American-backed Kurdish fighters from border areas in northern Syria.
He’s threatening to send Turkish troops across the frontier to achieve that goal and wants more than $23 billion in aid to build houses for about 2 million Syrian refugees he hopes to resettle in the zone.
Washington is firmly against a unilateral Turkish operation, fearing that it could derail the fight by Kurdish forces against Islamic State, a top U.S. priority in Syria.
“The financial aid given by EU countries for refugees is not a gesture for Turkey, it is a requirement as part of their unkept promises,” Omer Celik, the spokesman for Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, said late Wednesday.
He accused some EU countries, without naming them, of “bribery” for offering to increase financial aid to escape their responsibilities. “Turkey is not the refugee camp of any other country,” he said.
The officials meeting Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu on Thursday include Greek Migration Minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos, French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, his German counterpart Horst Seehofer, and EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos.
With unemployment rising, Erdogan is facing growing criticism over the cost of hosting more than 4 million refugees. There are fears in Ankara that the number could grow if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies launch an all-out attack on the last rebel bastion in Idlib.
“We may have to open the doors,” Erdogan told lawmakers of his Justice and Development Party on Sept. 5.
Migration to Europe has dropped off dramatically since more than a million asylum seekers entered the bloc four years ago, above all to Germany. But the influx redrew the EU’s political map, driving a wedge between member states and fueling a rise in far-right populism that exploited social anxiety in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
--With assistance from Samuel Dodge and Eleni Chrepa.
To contact the reporter on this story: Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara at shacaoglu@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, ;Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Mark Williams, Paul Abelsky
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