EU offers Turkey aid in migrant plan

On Wednesday afternoon, Merkel was in Strasbourg to address the European Parliament with French president Francois Hollande.

“Obviously the needs are so great in the refugee world, with 20 million refugees (globally), plus the numbers that are moving now out of Syria primarily, but also from other parts of the Middle East and Africa also, that clearly the more commitment we have on resettlement the better we are”, the IOM’s general director William Lacy Swing said. Tens of thousands of people trying to escape conflict and poverty in places like Syria and Afghanistan have been making their way across Europe this summer and fall, embarking on grueling journeys that typically start with a short boat trip from Turkey to Greece, then continue north and west on foot and by bus and train.

Home Secretary Theresa May told the Conservative Party conference Tuesday that Britain should tighten control of its borders, admitting vulnerable refugees but keeping out many people who aspire to a better life. The talks with the highest EU officials did not alter the prevailing malaise between the EU and Turkey and did little for Erdogan in the runup to Turkey’s elections.

Turkey could benefit from a fair share of the substantial increase of the EU Regional Trust Fund in response to the Syrian Crisis announced at the 23 September European Council.

She reiterated that EU countries should help and, referring to countries that refuse to relocate refugees, she regretted that “some still shirk their responsibility”. Even if affiliations between the PKK and the PYD and YPG are an undeniable fact, as long as the two do not formally appear in the list of terrorist organizations and as long as they are formidable fighting forces on the ground against IS, the positions of Erdogan and the EU will remain irreconcilable. The European powers would have to abandon all criticism of his regime, and above all support his foreign policy plans.

In Brussels, Erdogan, a strong opponent of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said the “root cause” of the refugee crisis was the “state-sponsored terrorism actually carried out by Assad himself”. A few things we won’t tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Second, Turkey is legitimately threatened by the Islamic State and wants to create as much distance as possible between its borders and those of the self-proclaimed caliphate. It was impossible to “speak of good and bad terrorists”.

She also said that she still opposed Turkey’s membership to the EU.

Speaking in the European Parliament, Mr Tusk ridiculed Angela Merkel over her decision to allow Syrians to claim asylum in Germany regardless of whether they had crossed through other safe EU countries first. According to him, the EU was now ready to talk about a “buffer zone” in Syria along the Turkish border. The prominent journalist, who has close ties to NATO circles and the German government, demanded that it was “of course” necessary to pay the price called for by Ankara to achieve the desired goals. Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU’s migration chief, and Angelino Alfano, the Italian home secretary, plan to wave them off in person.