German TV says Turkey ‘is not safe’ for refugees

Mohamed Abdel Ghaffar

The Turkish regime has been taking advantage of the Syrian refugees as a pressure card in negotiations with the EU to join the EU. Joining the EU would be a great victory for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is facing economic turmoil and tough political crises.

Turkey has partially succeeded by signing an agreement on refugees with the EU in 2016. Turkey should host all of the Syrian refugees in return for a financial support paid by the EU.

However, Turkey has not fulfilled its obligations, German TV channel ARD said on its website. The German channel said Turkey is not safe to host Syrian refugees. ARD said Turkey has been deporting refugees to a ‘safe zone’ in North Syria despite opposition from the EU and the United States.

The ARD report said Germany has hosted 10 times the number of refugees over the past 3 years in spite of the aforementioned 2016 agreement.

The TV channel criticized German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer for holding talks with Turkish officials on the refugees agreement.

Earlier, a Bavarian court ruled to suspend the transfer of a Syrian national to Greece due to the risk being he would be returned to Turkey, which it said did not meet the safe third country requirements set for asylum seekers, Deutsche Welle reported.

Meanwhile, Liz Throssell, a spokesperson for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, said: “Politically, this is very sensitive. We are in constant dialogue with the government on a number of issues, particularly about people having to go back to their provinces … but are looking at a number of reported cases related to deportations and have not been able to confirm those.”