Turk says illegal crossings down

At border with EU visitors, premier talks up migration deal

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (center left) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel speak with children in a classroom Saturday during a visit to a Syrian refugee camp in Nizip, Turkey.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (center left) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel speak with children in a classroom Saturday during a visit to a Syrian refugee camp in Nizip, Turkey.

GAZIANTEP, Turkey -- Turkey's prime minister said Saturday that the number of migrants crossing into Greece illegally has dropped considerably, as proof that a much-criticized migration deal between Turkey and the European Union is working.

Ahmet Davutoglu spoke at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top EU officials who traveled near Turkey's border with Syria in a bid to promote the deal with Turkey as they face increasing pressure to reassess the agreement. The group toured a refugee camp and inaugurated an EU-funded support center for children.

European Union Council President Donald Tusk said the EU plans to spend $1.1 billion on projects this summer to improve the lives of Syrian refugees in Turkey, and Davutoglu said the bloc has already begun projects worth $211 million.

Human-rights groups criticized the trip to what they call a "sanitized" refugee camp -- and said EU officials should look further at the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees that are now blocked from entering Turkey.

Davutoglu said the number of migrants crossing illegally into Greece had dropped from about 6,000 per day in November to around 130 daily since the beginning of April.

"This drop shows the effectiveness of this joint mechanism," Davutoglu said.

"Our priority was to stop the baby Aylans from washing up on the shores, and we have made great strides in this aim," Davutoglu said, referring to drowned 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose images helped galvanize world attention to the plight of the migrants.

The trip to the border city of Gaziantep by Merkel, Tusk, Davutoglu and EU Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans came as many have questioned the legality of the March 20 EU-Turkey deal allowing the deportation of migrants who don't qualify for asylum in Greece back to Turkey.

The EU in return has earmarked $6.8 billion to Turkey over the next four years to help improve conditions for the 2.7 million Syrian refugees inside Turkey. The EU also is set to allow visa-free travel for Turkish citizens.

Rights groups, EU legislators and the U.N. refugee agency have questioned the moral and legal implications of expelling people from Greece back to Turkey -- a country that many consider unsafe on grounds of security and human rights.

Despite insisting that it has an open-door policy for Syrian refugees, Turkey in the past few months has blocked several thousand who were fleeing northern Syria at the border, providing aid to them at camps near the border instead. Human-rights groups say some of the camps have been attacked and are pressing Ankara to give the refugees shelter inside Turkey.

Amnesty International says Turkish authorities have also for the past three months been expelling around 100 Syrians a day back to their war-ravaged country -- an accusation Turkey has denied. The country has also rejected claims that Turkish soldiers have sometimes shot at refugees trying to cross the border illegally.

Davutoglu reacted angrily to the Amnesty claim Saturday, saying not a single Syrian had been returned to his homeland without consent.

Tusk backed Turkey, saying the country -- which is host to the world's largest refugee population -- was "the best example in the entire world of how to treat refugees."

On Syria, Merkel said she was in favor of the creation of "areas that are under special protection of the cease-fire, where as much safety as possible can be offered."

Merkel added, "The safer people can feel, the less they have to leave their homeland."

President Barack Obama also weighed in on the issue in comments to German daily Bild that were published Saturday. He praised Merkel's "political and moral leadership" in the migrant crisis but also stressed the need to uphold human rights.

Earlier, the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch urged EU leaders to understand the whole refugee picture at the Turkish border.

"Instead of touring a sanitized refugee camp, EU leaders should look over the top of Turkey's new border wall to see the tens of thousands of war-weary Syrian refugees blocked on the other side," said Judith Sunderland, Human Rights Watch's acting deputy Europe and Central Asia director. "Then, they should go to the [Turkish] detention center for people who were abusively deported from Greece. That should make them rethink the flawed EU-Turkey deal."

Information for this article was contributed by Geir Moulson and Derek Gatopoulos of The Associated Press.

A Section on 04/24/2016

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