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EU: Turkey must keep border open
Top EU officials on Saturday reminded Turkey of its international obligations to keep its frontiers open to refugees.“The Geneva convention is still valid which states that you have to take in refugees,” EU Enlargement and Regional Policy Commissioner Johannes Hahn said as he went into talks on the migrant crisis with EU foreign ministers and their counterparts from countries seeking EU membership, including Turkey. An EU diplomatic source told AFP that the foreign ministers, meeting informally in Amsterdam, would take the opportunity to voice their concerns over the fate of the refugees fleeing the government offensive against rebel forces in Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a Syria donors conference in London on Thursday that Ankara would allow the latest group of refugees into the country. More than a million migrants landed in the 28-nation European Union last year, most of them crossing into Greece from Turkey, and then making their way through the Balkans to Germany and other northern member states. Such numbers have put huge strains on the bloc and the Schengen passport-free zone, with several countries - among them Germany, Austria, Hungary, Sweden - re-introducing border controls while Brussels struggles to find a comprehensive solution. Posted by: Steve White 2016-02-07 |
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