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EU rolls out draft action plan with Turkey on refugee issues

Xinhua, October 7, 2015 Adjust font size:

The European Commission on Tuesday released a draft action Plan to step up European Union (EU)-Turkey cooperation on support to refugees and migration management in view of the situation in Syria and Iraq.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker handed the draft over to the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday during the latter's visit to Brussels.

The draft action plan was aimed to address the current refugee crisis situation in two ways: by supporting the refugees and their host communities in Turkey, and by strengthening cooperation to prevent irregular migration flows to the EU.

"Work is ongoing to reach agreement on the details," said the Commission in a statement.

Noting that Turkey has already spent more than 6.75 billion euros of its own resources on addressing the refugee crisis, the draft plan said that the EU side intends to mobilize up to one billion euros for the period 2015-2016 to support Turkey in coping with the challenge represented by the presence of Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

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 during his visit on Monday.

After the agreement by the two leaders in principle on Monday, the details of the draft action plan needs to be agreed between the two sides. Endit