EU has not fulfilled its promises: Turkish FM

BERLIN

The European Union has fallen well short of its promised funding for Syrian refugees in Turkey, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Monday.

Cavusoglu was responding on Twitter to a tweet by his German counterpart Heiko Maas.

He asked Maas which promises have been fulfilled by the EU.

"The European Union has not even paid half of the 6 billion euros (US$6.68 billion) that it had promised Ankara for Syrians. It has not fulfilled voluntary humanitarian admission and has not supported Turkey’s safe zone plan" in Syria, he said.

He said Turkey cannot use force to stop irregular immigrants who want to leave.

"The EU has closed its eyes for years. Isn't it time to take responsibility?"

Criticizing Maas’ attitude, Cavusoglu said he would be more likely to believe Maas' warning if Maas could warn Greece over its cruel approach to irregular migrants.

"Currently, they are cruelly killing migrants at their borders," he said.

Greece uses excessive force on unarmed and vulnerable irregular migrants to stop them from entering the country, including tear gas, sound bombs and plastic and real bullets.

On Monday, a Syrian migrant was killed by Greek forces and several others were injured.

“We see Turkey's burden. However, Turkey needs to continue to fulfil its obligations under the EU agreement. EU contributes to honorable care of refugees. We cannot allow them to become a geopolitical game ball,” Maas said Monday on his Twitter account.

The EU and Turkey concluded a deal on refugees in 2016 in which the EU promised to provide 6 billion euros in financial assistance to be used by the Turkish government to finance projects for Syrian refugees and Turkey agreed to help stop irregular migrants from heading to Europe.

The EU only transferred half of the financial support, but according to Ankara’s criticism, it failed to deliver on other promises of the deal, including voluntary humanitarian admission and visa liberalization for Turkish citizens traveling to Europe.

"The era of one-sided sacrifices is now over," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday.

Several thousands of migrants have gathered at the Turkish-Greek border in the past few days.

The Greek government on Sunday asked for the EU’s help to secure its borders and announced that it had stopped accepting asylum claims for a month due to the increased migratory pressure.

*Writing by Fahri Aksut