EUR 3 B May Not Be Enough to Contain Migrant Influx, Turkish PM Tells DPA

World | January 22, 2016, Friday // 16:31
Bulgaria: EUR 3 B May Not Be Enough to Contain Migrant Influx, Turkish PM Tells DPA German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (R) inpect the guard of honours in front of the Federal Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, 22 January 2016. Photo by EPA/BGNES

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that the financial aid of EUR 3 B pledged by the EU may not be enough to help his government cut the flow of refugees into Europe because nobody knows how long the crisis will last.

“First of all, this is not a Turkish crisis. The root cause of this refugee crisis is not Turkey or anything related to Turkey,” Davutoglu has said in an interview with German news agency DPA prior to his visit to Germany on Friday.

“We are not exporting a crisis - a crisis has been exported to Turkey,” he added, referring to the wars in Iraq and Syria. ”Now, it became a European crisis.”

With the refugee crisis being at the top of Davutoglu’s agenda of talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the two sides are also expected to discuss the fight against terrorism, intelligence cooperation and regional issues.

EU leaders agreed in November to pay EUR 3 B for projects that will help refugees integrate in Turkish society and improve living conditions in refugee camps - in return for keeping more migrants in place. But EU member states can’t agree on where the money should come from and haven’t identified any projects so far.

Davutoglu said that Ankara wasn’t “begging for money from the EU”, noting that Turkey has already spent “close to 10 billion dollars” of its own funds to tackle the refugee crisis.

“We have 2.5 million refugees in Turkey from Syria, from Iraq 300,000 more,” Davutoglu said, adding that “nobody can expect from Turkey to carry the entire burden alone.”

 

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Tags: turkey, Germany, Merkel, Davutoglu, migrants, refugees, EU, aid, crisis, terrorism, intelligence,  

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