Turkish, EU leaders gather for emergency refugee summit

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish and EU leaders have gathered in Brussels for an emergency summit on tackling Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War Two, BBC News reports.

The EU aims to stem the flow of migrants and plans to declare the route north through the Balkans closed. It will press Turkey to take back economic migrants and has pledged to give Ankara €3bn ($3.3bn).

Last year, more than a million people entered the EU illegally by boat, mainly going from Turkey to Greece.

Some 13,000 are stranded on Greece's border with Macedonia.

The human cost of the migrant crisis was brought home again on Sunday, March 6, when a boat capsized off Turkey with the loss of 25 lives.

EU states remain divided over their response to the crisis with strains showing this year even in Germany and Sweden, seen as the countries most open to refugees.

Anti-migrant parties won a general election in Slovakia on Saturday which saw the far right gaining seats.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte met their Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, at the Turkish embassy in Brussels late on Sunday to prepare for the summit.

The summit will be in two parts - the first session will involve Turkey, while in the afternoon UK Prime Minister David Cameron will join other EU leaders in seeking to reach a common approach to the crisis.

The EU is expected to ask Turkey to take back thousands of migrants who do not qualify for asylum. In return the EU will discuss plans to resettle in Europe some refugees already in Turkey.

Last week, European Council President Donald Tusk said he had been told by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that his country was ready to take back all migrants apprehended in Turkish waters.

The draft communique also pledges that the EU will "stand by Greece in this difficult moment and will do its utmost to help manage the situation".

"This is a collective EU responsibility requiring fast and efficient mobilization," it adds.

The EU said last October it would relocate 160,000 asylum seekers, mainly from Greece and Italy, but there was strong opposition among some members and fewer than 700 migrants have moved.

The EU may now overhaul its system that requires asylum seekers to lodge claims in their EU country of arrival, and instead adopt a centralized system for processing applications.