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1st LD Writethru: Turkey president visits EU as refugee crisis high on agenda

Xinhua, October 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

European Council President Donald Tusk on Monday met with visiting President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, calling for closer cooperation on coping with refugee crisis.

"The situation where hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing to the EU via Turkey must be stopped. And we cannot do it on our own, we need the Turkish side," said Tusk after the two leaders' meeting.

He said that in order to solve this crisis, the two sides discussed financial assistance, border management, fight against smugglers, integration policies and visa liberalization, noting that the European Union is ready to take up all issues with Turkey so they also discussed a possible buffer zone in Syria.

Tusk said that the two sides had been very engaged in talks the last days and weeks. The European Union (EU) and Turkey share a shared challenge at hand, which is "the many refugees and migrants in and crossing through Turkey to EU countries."

The two sides also discussed issues including the urgent need to find a solution to the conflict in Syria.

Later Monday afternoon, when receiving the visiting president, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that the topics of the meeting was not only about refugees, but also about relation between turkey and the EU, as well as the accession process.

"I'm strongly in favor of seeing the visa issue moving forward and being accelerated," said Juncker.

Turkey is a country which has welcomed 2.2 million Syrian refugees on the territory, and also welcomed 300, 000 Iraqis refugees in the country, said Erdogan.

Erdogan kicked off his visit to Brussels on Monday, when he was scheduled to meet the presidents of the top three EU institutions, and he would also hold a joint dinner with Tusk, Juncker and European Parliament President Martin Schulz Monday evening. Endit