EU Making `Big Mistake' in Turkey Deal Demirtas Warns

[Anthea]

The Guardian

Resettling Syrians, aid and visa changes on table at EU-Turkey migration summit

Draft of summit conclusions says EU ready to double aid to €6bn, as leaders discuss plan to resettle one Syrian refugee in Europe for every Syrian returned to Turkey from Greek islands

A proposal to exchange Syrian refugees has been debated at an emergency EU-Turkey summit in Brussels, as Ankara demanded an extra €3bn to help manage Europe’s migration crisis.

Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, outlined proposals to resettle one Syrian refugee in Europe for every Syrian returned to Turkey from the Greek islands.

The EU was ready to double aid for Syrian refugees in Turkey, as it bargained with Ankara to do more to stop migrants and refugees arriving on Greece’s shores. EU leaders promised Turkey €6bn (£4.6bn) over three years, twice the €3bn offered last November, according to a draft version of the summit conclusions.

Turkey has given shelter to almost 3 million refugees, while almost 363,000 Syrians claimed asylum in Europe last year. Up to 2,000 refugees are arriving on Greek shores every day, many from Syria, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Davutoğlu also promised to tackle people smuggling: “With these new proposals we aim to rescue refugees, discourage those who misuse and exploit their situation and find a new era in Turkey-EU relations.”

He told European leaders Turkey wanted more for its citizens in exchange for helping the EU. He called for visa-liberalisation for 75 million Turks by 1 June, an advance on the October deadline proposed last year, as well as re-starting Turkey’s long-stalled EU accession talks.

European officials are investigating whether a one-for-one resettlement programme is “legally and logistically possible”, said a source.

Questions will also be asked about whether all EU member states would take part in a resettlement scheme, with some countries, notably Hungary, refusing to take part in an EU relocation scheme.

Ahead of the summit, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said his country had already spent $10bn (£7bn) helping those living in Turkey who have fled the war in Syria.

Last year, the EU promised €3bn to feed and house refugees in Turkey, in exchange for more action from Ankara to tackle people-smuggling and reduce the flow of people arriving on European shores.

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[Anthea]

The Guardian

EU-Turkey deal could see Syrian refugees back in war zones, says UN

Refugees chief questions legality of agreement to send people back to Turkey without guarantees for their protection

A senior UN official says he is very concerned that a hasty EU deal with Turkey could leave Syrian refugees unprotected and at risk of being sent back to a war zone.

Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees , questioned the legality of an outline deal struck by the EU and Turkey.

“As a first reaction I am deeply concerned about any arrangement that would involve the blanket return of anyone from one country to another, without spelling out the refugee protection safeguards under international law,” he said on Tuesday.
Turkey and EU agree outline of 'one in, one out' deal over Syria refugee crisis
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At the heart of the deal between the EU and Turkey is a controversial refugee exchange programme. Under the plan, Syrian refugees on the Greek islands would be returned to Turkey, while European countries would take asylum seekers currently living in Turkey.

Speaking to the European parliament in Strasbourg, Grandi said asylum seekers should only be returned to other states if there was a guarantee that that they would not then be sent back to the place they had fled. The country of return also had to ensure asylum seekers had access to work, healthcare, education and social assistance, Grandi said.

Separately, Vincent Cochetel, regional director for Europe at the office of the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), said an EU commitment to resettle 20,000 refugees over two years, on a voluntary basis, remained “very low”.

“The collective expulsion of foreigners is prohibited under the European convention of human rights,” he told a news briefing in Geneva.
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The UNHCR called on Europe to ensure safeguards for refugees being returned to the Middle East at an EU summit next week.

EU leaders have hailed the one-for-one plan as a breakthrough that would deter Syrians from making dangerous journeys across the Aegean Sea.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, insisted that sending refugees back to Turkey was legal and in line with the Geneva convention. Citing specific paragraphs in the EU’s asylum procedure directive, he said countries could refuse to consider refugee claims if there was a safe place to send them back to. As Greece had decided Turkey was “a safe country”, he said, the returns policy was legal.

Human rights groups are not convinced. Amnesty International has said it is absurd to describe Turkey as a safe third country, and that some Syrians have been returned to Syria and been shot at while trying to cross the Turkish border.

Amnesty’s Europe director, John Dalhuisen, said: “It’s a really grim day and it’s a really grim deal. It’s being celebrated by people who are dancing on the grave of refugee protection, who want to enforce Fortress Europe and who don’t want these refugees in our countries.

“If it is applied in its absolute sense, then the number of refugees that Europe would take would depend on the number of refugees prepared to risk their lives through other means – and that is staring at a moral abyss.”

Human Rights Watch also said Turkey cannot be regarded as a safe country of asylum. “It is knowingly shortsighted for EU leaders to close their borders without considering the impact on Turkey’s borders with Syria,” said Bill Frelick, HRW’s refugee rights director.

The British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, received a letter saying that Kurds fleeing Iraq, Syria and Turkey could face a “very dangerous situation” if they were forced to return to Turkey under the proposed EU deal.

The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, Tom Brake, wrote to Hammond and the home secretary, Theresa May, saying he feared that Kurds might be forcibly returned to Turkey where they faced persecution.

Brake wrote: “Many Kurds have understandably fled Iraq and Syria as a result of the destruction of communities by Daesh [Islamic State] in the north of Syria and Iraq. The increase in assaults by Turkish forces against the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) has led to more Kurds trying to reach Europe.

“I am concerned that Kurds will potentially be sent back to Turkey as a result of the proposals agreed between the EU and Turkey which will lead to a very dangerous situation for Kurdish people. I would therefore like to know what the government is doing to ensure that Kurds will not be put in danger by being sent back to a hostile Turkey.”

Melanie Ward, from the International Rescue Committee, described the one in, one out policy as unhelpful. “If this policy is designed to incentivise Turkey to stop refugees leaving their shores, it in fact risks doing the opposite,” she said.

“This is not a matter purely of numbers but of humanitarian need and decisions should be made on that basis. This is in no-one’s interests except the smugglers.”

Grandi reminded his audience that the Syrian conflict was entering its sixth year, adding that Syrian refugees were facing increasingly difficult conditions in Jordan and Lebanon: 90% lived below the poverty line as they were unable to work and had run down all their savings.

In a veiled rebuke to the EU, he said Afghans, who many European states do not deem to have legitimate asylum claims, also had urgent protection needs.

According to the UNHCR, 31 out of Afghanistan’s 34 regions saw a surge in people fleeing conflict last year. The number of internally displaced Afghans has risen to a million people, up 78%.

In a speech timed to coincide with International Women’s Day, Grandi said people often did not realise how many women and children were fleeing conflicts around the world.

He said: “In public opinion the image [of a refugee] is often of young single men arriving in Europe to look for work. Today, on International Women’s Day, I wish to report that nearly two thirds are women and children.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/m ... urkey-deal

[Anthea]

Bloomberg

EU Making `Big Mistake' in Turkey Deal, Kurdish Leader Warns

The European Union is making an historic mistake in its haste to conclude a refugee deal with Turkey, overlooking human rights violations that risk plunging the bloc’s largest membership candidate into civil war, said Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the nation’s most prominent pro-Kurdish party.

The EU is turning a blind eye to an opposition crackdown in Turkey that’s polarizing society and complicating efforts to find a political solution to the nation’s Kurdish conflict, Demirtas said in an impromptu interview en route to Brussels. European leaders are expected to ink an agreement with Turkey on Monday that will offer faster EU membership negotiations and visa-free travel in exchange for stopping refugees from crossing the country to enter Europe.

"The EU is trying so hard not to upset Erdogan, and that’s a big mistake," Demirtas said, referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "The world has gone very silent on what’s happening in Turkey, and that’s saddening and also short-sighted. If the war in Turkey continues like this, you’re also going to have refugees from Turkey."

Demirtas’s own experience show how fast things are changing. Less than a year ago, he was celebrating a momentous electoral result that marked him as a rising political star, dealing a blow to Erdogan’s attempts to concentrate more power in his office. But on Sunday night, sitting alone on the front row of a Turkish Airlines flight, Demirtas had a possible jail sentence on his mind.

Erdogan has called on parliament to strip HDP lawmakers of their immunity to try them for their links to the Kurdish PKK, considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and EU. PKK gunmen resumed their 30-year-old insurgency after the collapse of the political peace process last year. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Sunday that parliament would take up the subject after budget talks.

‘Remaking Society’

“There’s a very high risk it will happen,” said Demirtas, with a copy of “Remaking Society” by decentralization advocate Murray Bookchin perched on his armrest. “I don’t see this as a big risk for me personally. But for the country, it is.”

Demirtas was speaking two days after Turkish government trustees took over one of Turkey’s primary opposition newspapers in a dramatic raid that sparked clashes between protesters and police. The seizure reflects a broader intolerance of dissent that has also undermined the HDP, who are now largely excluded from mainstream media coverage.

“Of course this affects us,” Demirtas said. “We were a party on the rise, and now we can only try to protect our position.”

While markets have largely shrugged off the crackdowns, they’re a concern for longer-term investors, according to Nathan Griffiths, a senior emerging-market equities manager who helps oversee $1.2 billion at NN Investment Partners in The Hague.

‘No Exposure’

"Turkey is going very much in the wrong direction, with President Erdogan assuming complete power with limited checks and balances," Griffiths said by e-mail on Monday. “Long-term investors are best advised to have no exposure to Turkey."

The Turkish lira fell 0.6 percent to 2.9207 per dollar at 6:20 p.m. on Monday. The currency is little changed this year, following a 20 percent decline in 2015. Stocks gained 0.4 percent, extending their advance this year to 8 percent.

In meetings this week with the Party of European Socialists, of which the HDP is a member, Demirtas plans to urge his European counterparts to stick to their humanitarian principles and work toward ending the Kurdish conflict.

“They should play a mediator role between Turkey and the PKK,” he said. “The EU parliament could form a commission, and they could call for a cease-fire. Then the EU could lead a process of Turkish-Kurdish peace that would also ease Turkey’s EU membership process."

Legitimate War

That’s unlikely given that the EU also regards the PKK as a terrorist group, though Demirtas said there’s precedent for such a move. Davutoglu’s mediation in the Philippines helped to end the conflict with the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, also widely recognized as a terrorist organization, he said.

“Because they see the PKK as a terrorist group, the EU thinks it also has to accept Turkey’s war on the PKK as legitimate,” he said. “But that’s a very wrong approach.”

Most European leaders are reluctant to get involved with Turkey’s complex domestic issues, instead focusing on the immediate goal of tackling the biggest flow of refugees since World War II, many of them fleeing Syria and Iraq and traveling by sea from Turkey to Greece.

That gives Turkey significant leverage.

On the same day that authorities took control of the Zaman newspaper, European Council President Donald Tusk, who was in Istanbul, tweeted a picture of himself with Erdogan in front of a pair of golden throne-like seats.

Political Moves

It was almost identical to a photo-op with German Chancellor Angela Merkel last year, which was around the same time that the EU agreed to Erdogan’s request to withhold a critical report on Turkish democracy until after the general election a few days later.

Such moves have generated opposition within the EU. Marietje Schaake, a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands, called for the body to address rule of law and rights violations in Turkey, which she says have deteriorated even since Frans Timmermans, a European commissioner, agreed on a preliminary deal with Erdogan on asylum and migration late last year.

“Turkey won’t solve Europe’s problems” on refugees, Schaake said in a statement Monday. “Yet, the price of credibility and principles has been paid.”

Demirtas said there’s little cause for optimism in the short-term. If Turkey and the PKK continue their battles with no intervention toward a political truce, "a more widespread war awaits us in the months ahead," he said.

“The EU has no policy,” he said. “Instead of trying to dry the swamp, they’re fighting with mosquitoes. If instead they pushed for peace, the swamp would dry up."

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