Can Turkey stop the flow of migrants into Europe?

European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker (R) speaks to the media as he welcomes Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the EU Commission in Brussels, Belgium, October 5, 2015.

Thousands took to the streets of the eastern city of Dresden late Monday, accusing Chancellor Angela Merkel of “crimes against the German people” and “treason”.

Turkey hosts nearly 2 million refugees from Syria, about half of the 4 million who have fled the war there, according to UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency.

Tusk said the two sides had been engaged in talks. “It is our task to protect these people,” he said. “But if Russian Federation loses a friend like Turkey, with whom it has been cooperating on many issues, it will lose a lot, and it should know that,” he said.

Yenel rejected the suggestion by a few experts on the region that Turkey’s support for a safe zone is only created to keep the Kurds from ending up with control of the area, where they are fighting against the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

As refugees continue to arrive, European Union officials have suggested sending financial aid to Ankara to keep migrants in Turkey while they process their asylum requests.

“The situation where hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing to Europe via Turkey must be stopped”.

In Greece, police arrested an Afghan smuggler accused of keeping 34 migrants, including 12 minors, locked up in an Athens apartment. He is likely to seek concessions from the EU.

The Czech Republic said it would send “about 25 soldiers” to neighbouring Hungary to help it protect the EU’s external frontiers.

One Syrian woman in Karapurcek said she planned to travel almost 800 km (500 miles) to Turkey’s border with Syria – where Arabic is widely spoken – to find treatment for her daughter.

European Union leaders pledged at least 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) for Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and other countries at an emergency summit in Brussels last month.

“Council President Tusk’s and High Representative [Federica] Mogherini’s priority must be to negotiate a common European position to defeat IS [Daesh] and get rid of Assad…The EU should support an immediate installation of a no-fly zone in Syria,”Verhofstadt said”.

Facing its worst migrant crisis since the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Europe is dropping its criticism of what it sees as Erdogan’s increasing authoritarianism and looking to Turkey to absorb more refugees from Syria and Iraq. “There are no barriers that can stop people”.

Erdogan boasted of his country’s record in taking in 2 million refugees from neighbouring Syria and Iraq, and contrasted it with the numbers passing through the bloc in comments made during a televised meeting with Belgian business leaders.