German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top EU officials have arrived at the Turkish-Syrian border in an attempt to soothe tensions over a refugee swap deal between the EU and Turkey, al-Jazeera reported.
Merkel, European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans will go to the southern Turkish province Gaziantep, where they are due to visit a refugee camp and meet Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
Ahead of the trip, the Guardian quoted Tusk’s office as saying: “Disbursements from the EU’s newly established facility for refugees in Turkey are ongoing and the identification and planning for further projects has intensified.”
The photocall is the latest in a series of moves aimed at getting Turkey to help end the continent’s greatest wave of human movement since the World War II. More than 850,000 refugees entered Europe after leaving Turkey last year, the majority of them ending up in Germany, and Merkel wants Ankara’s support to bring the numbers down.
“It is both sides that have a strong interest in making this work. Turkey wants support in easing the refugee burden – both financial support and in terms of numbers. And they want visa liberalization. We have other interests,” a Merkel aide said, according to Reuters.
“Ultimately it will depend on both sides fulfilling the criteria they need to. If that doesn’t happen the deal won’t work. Whether it’s sustainable is not clear yet,” the aide added.
In Gaziantep, Syrians praised Merkel for her wider support for refugees last year, but reminded her of the desperate situation faced by the majority of Syrians in Turkey who do not have homes provided for them by the state.
“It’s true – the camp in Nizip is very nice,” said Abu Shihab, the Syrian manager of a sweatshop that employs Syrian children. “But what about the many more people who live outside the camps?”
While Merkel’s visit to a child protection center highlights her intention to help Syrian children, Syrians suggested that solving the humanitarian crisis would take a far more concerted effort. Surveys of Syrian refugees in Gaziantep by the Syrian Relief Network, a coalition of NGOs, suggest that only a third of the city’s Syrian children go to school, partly because of a lack of capacity and partly because they are put to work by parents who cannot earn enough on the black market to support their families.
“Nobody supports them,” said Shihab, sitting near a line of children making shoes. “Their families may earn only 0 a month, so [the parents] have to look for other sources of money. And they can’t send their kids to school, so instead they send them to work.”
This was, he argued, too big a problem for Turkey to deal with on its own. “Turkey has nearly 3 million refugees and only a small percentage of them went to Europe – and yet Europe has already had enough,” he said. “So how do you expect Turkey to do more?”
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