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Dutch premier welcomes important steps taken at EU-Turkey summit

Xinhua, March 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Tuesday the European Union-Turkey summit in Brussels on Monday had taken important steps toward the two-fold aim of stemming migrant flows and ending people smuggling.

To reduce the number of migrants entering Greece from Turkey, Turkey has committed to taking back all migrants who are not admitted to the asylum procedure.

"That is a concrete achievement of this summit, and one which will help our efforts to resolve the crisis," said Rutte on his Facebook page. "That is certainly also important with a view to the peak expected this spring."

The Dutch premier said: "The plan by Ahmet Davutoglu, Prime Minister of Turkey, is that Turkey is prepared to take back all migrants, both Syrians and non-Syrians. In return, the European Union would commit to admitting one Syrian directly from Turkey for each one returned from Greece," he explained.

"This will mean that a Syrian who makes the sea crossing will be sent back to Turkey and go to the bottom of the list of those who might at some stage qualify for regulated admission to the European Union. This will make it exceedingly unattractive to make the crossing, and the expectation is that the entire influx of migrants from Turkey will dry up," he said.

In return, Ankara has asked for an extra three billion euros (3.3 billion U.S. dollars) from the EU in aid money to help stem the massive migrant flows. Brussels already promised to provide three billion euros to Ankara to tackle the migrant crisis in November last year.

Turkey also wanted to speed up its accession process to the EU. Davutoglu told reporters that the summit could be a "turning point" for its EU membership bid.

Details of these steps remain to be worked out. "The good news is that all colleagues in the European Council want to flesh out the plan before our next meeting on March 17," said Rutte. Endit