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Interview: Essential responsibility of U.S. for refugee crisis: German expert

Xinhua, September 15, 2015 Adjust font size:

The United States has an essential responsibility for the ongoing refugee crisis, said a German Middle East expert.

"Refugees now arriving in Europe should be actually sent by boat straight to New York," Michael Lueders told Xinhua on Monday.

One of the main reasons for the current crisis is Western military intervention in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Libya, which has led to chaos and anarchy, noted Lueders, board member of the German Near and Middle East Association and vice-chairman of the German Orient Foundation.

Most of the refugees are coming precisely from those countries that have been intervened, mainly from Syria and Iraq, he added.

According to Lueders, the military invention in the Arab world and the determination of the West to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria carry considerable blame for all the chaos in Syria.

"They wanted to see him overthrown and then to put a new government which is pro-Western. However, this strategy failed. The result is, among other things, the fueling of the war," he noted.

Meanwhile, Lueders also pointed out the existing problems in the current European Union (EU) asylum and refugee policy, as there is "absolutely no preparation from EU to deal with this crisis."

"This is unbelievable, because many refugees have arrived in Italy and Greece for years," Lueders said, adding that the European countries however did not use the time to draw up a plan to deal with this refugee influx.

"Accordingly, it is now completely overwhelmed. Nobody has a concept and nobody has a plan," he said.

Meanwhile, Europeans are not willing to recognize the causes that have led to this refugee influx, particularly the military intervention of the United States, France and Britain in the Middle East, said Lueders.

He suggested that Germany should consider how the EU can better organize to deal with such crises and challenges.

European countries should learn to be more critical toward Washington's policy as a whole, the expert concluded. Endi