EU and Turkey's Erdogan try to hammer out migrant crisis plan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and top EU officials discussed a plan to tackle the spiralling migrant crisis during talks in Brussels Monday, including a "safe zone" in northern Syria.

The European Union pushed Erdogan to do more to stop the flow of hundreds of thousands of refugees who have landed on Europe's shores from Turkey in the worst crisis of its kind since World War II.

But the Turkish leader insisted that his country was bearing the brunt of the problem, with around two million Syrian refugees on its territory, and pressed Brussels to do more to tackle "terrorism".

Erdogan's visit came as it emerged that 630,000 people have entered the European Union illegally this year, many coming via Turkey, and that Germany could receive up to 1.5 million
"It is indisputable that Europe has to manage its borders better. We expect Turkey to do the same," EU President Donald Tusk told reporters alongside Erdgoan.

Tusk said they had also discussed a "possible buffer zone in Syria" -- Turkey's pet project for an area cleared of Islamic State jihadist fighters in northern Syria where refugees could be safe.

- 'Safe zone' call -

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.

"If we would like to resolve the refugee issue there are three things we have to do. One is to focus on training and equipment, the second one is to declare a safe zone that would be protected from terrorism and the third is a no-fly zone," Erdogan said.
But he also urged the EU to back the fight not only against Islamic State but also against the Kurdish separatist PKK group, with Brussels dismayed at the violence that has followed a breakdown in a two-year ceasefire with the group.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said ahead of his meeting with Erdogan that "I will propose to my friend a common migration agenda, we will discuss this in detail."

Brussels and Ankara were reportedly discussing a European Commission plan that would see Turkey join Greek coastguard patrols in the eastern Aegean, coordinated by EU border agency Frontex.

Any migrants picked up would be taken back to Turkey where six new camps for up to two million people would be built, co-financed by the EU.

But chances of an immediate deal were slim, with the migrant crisis having further taxed relations between Erdogan and Brussels, long strained by EU criticisms over human rights and by tortuous negotiations on Turkey's application for membership of the bloc.

- Bodies on hotel beach -
European officials are also set to push Turkey to tackle people smugglers, a scourge that was once again in the spotlight with the discovery of scores more bodies of drowned migrants on the shores of the Mediterranean.

On Greece's Kos, the bodies of a dead baby boy, thought to be less than a year old, and the decomposed body of another child believed to be three to five years old, were discovered on a hotel beach.

The find revived memories of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian refugee whose body was washed up on a Turkish beach while his family tried to get to Greece, producing pictures that shocked the world.

Meanwhile the bodies of 85 migrants have been found washed up on the coast of Libya, a major departure point for the sea crossing to Europe, the Red Crescent said Monday.
The migration crisis has reached such a scale that Germany could receive up to 1.5 million asylum-seekers this year, according to newspaper Bild, quoting a confidential document with estimates far higher than official figures.

Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri said 630,000 people have entered the bloc illegally this year.

He called for 775 extra border guards to be deployed at the EU's external borders -- the largest request in Frontex's history -- to beef up defences in Italy and Greece.

The huge influx of people has exposed deep rifts among the EU's 28 member states, especially over a compulsory plan to share 160,000 migrants throughout the bloc.

Source: AFP