Merkel Meets Turkey’s Erdoğan, Davutoğlu

German Chancellor Angela Merkel first met with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu at Prime Ministry Office in Dolmabahçe.

After the meeting, Davutoğlu and Merkel issued a joint declaration. Davutoğlu also announced that a similar meeting will be held in Jauary.

Here are some notes from Davutoğlu's speech:

"We talked over global and regional issues as well as touching Syrian conflict. We spoke about making call for all countries to be more sensitive. Illegal immigration is not an issue that a single country can solve, it is a global problem that requires cooperation of all countries. Today Turkey hosts more than 2 million Syrians and undertakes a cost of more than $7.5 billion."

"Merkel has acted in a humane manner"

"Mrs. Merkel has acted in an extremely humane manner. Joint working group between Turkey and Germany convened on October 15. The next one will take place in Berlin. What is important is to find two solutions."

"Readmission agreement solves the immigration issue"

"We, as Turkey are ready to work against human trafficking. Turkey has been attaching importance on a fair approach on the distribution of refugees. Turkey has been left alone in that.

We are happy with the new period entered by our bilateral discussions."

"Schengen to be put into effect in 2016"

"We are spending some serious efforts to finalize Schengen issue in 2016 that was initially planned for 2017. We hope by July of 2016, both readmission agreement and Schengen deal will go in effect."

Merkel-Erdoğan meeting

The German chancellor met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at Yıldız Palace after her meeting with Davutoğlu. Merkel speaking in the joint press conference following the meeting said, "Several working groups will be formed. Our next meeting will be at G-20 summit in Antalya."

Merkel: Share of inconvenience

Merkel said one of the important topics was the refugees directing towards Turkey and the West.

"We had some evaluations over share of inconvenience on this topic. They underlined that we need to help Turkey in terms of the burden Turkey has undertaken.

We also laid importance on the need of working together against terror groups, and made some evaluations on 15th, 17th, 23rd, and 31st chapters [of EU entrance negotiations]."

"The need for political solution in Syria"

"We especially assessed the subject of fighting against terrorism. We talked over the requirement of political solution in Syria, and we've come to terms to discuss these matters again. We also discussed that Turkey has taken on an important task by receiving more than 2 million refugees.

"We observe that this immigration movement might increase and this movement may flow towards Europe over Turkey. In this respect, we defend Turkey needs to be supported." (BK/TK)

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Photo: Hakan Göktepe, Berk Özkan/ AA, Mustafa Aktaş / Prime Ministry