Erdoğan: 80,000 People Migrating from Syria’s Idlib to Turkey

* Photo: Mustafa Kamacı / İstanbul - AA

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President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a statement at the Disseminating Wisdom Awards ceremony in Dolmabahçe Palace in İstanbul yesterday (December 22).

Bringing up the issue of "safe cities" envisioned for northern Syria in his speech, President Erdoğan said, "It is quite clear that the problems of refugees cannot be solved with symbolic sums of money."

Indicating that there was a mobility in the region due to the "massacres in Idlib", Erdoğan stated that 80 thousand Syrians started marching from Idlib towards the border of Turkey and added the following:

'All European countries will feel it'

"Turkey will not bear the burden of this migration all alone. The negative impacts of the pressure that we will be subjected to will also be felt by all European countries, especially Greece.

"In that case, it is inevitable that the scenes unfolding before the March 18 agreement will be repeated."

Erdoğan also stated that a meeting would be held with the authorities of Russia about the issue in the capital city of Moscow today.

What is the March 18 Agreement of Turkey and EU?

Turkey and the European Union (EU) signed an agreement on refugees on March 18, 2016. On April 1, the Parliament of Greece approved a bill foreseeing the return of refugees to Turkey by a vote of 169 against 107.

As part of the agreement, the refugees who managed to enter Europe started to be sent back to Turkey on April 4.

The agreement has foreseen that for each Syrian refugee sent back to Turkey from Greek islands, a refugee will be settled in an EU country. The objective of the EU-Turkey agreement was to stop the movement of refugees towards Europe.

Accordingly, the refugees who reached Greece through Turkey, but did not apply for asylum or whose asylum requests were not accepted are sent back to Turkey.

While Amnesty International has indicated that Turkey is sending refugees back to Syria, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey has denied the allegations.

(PT/SD)