Turkey Limits Entries Of Migrants; 'We’re At The End Of Capacity To Absorb'
The Turkish government has recently expressed frustration over the worsening migrant crisis saying that it has now reached the end of its "capacity to absorb" more refugees as the country faces increasing pressure from the international community to take in tens of thousands of displaced people amassing outside its border with Syria.
"Turkey has reached the end of its capacity to absorb (refugees). But in the end, these people have nowhere else to go. Either they will die beneath the bombings and Turkey will ... watch the massacre like the rest of the world, or we will open our borders," remarked Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus in an interview with CNN-Turk as quoted by Sacramento Bee.
Currently, Turkey already hosted 2.5 million Syrians- the largest refugee population to date- and probably more as Syrians flocked to Turkey to escape the onslaught of fresh government offensive towards Aleppo backed by Russian firepower according to Reuters.
Despite its existing efforts of sheltering Syrians fleeing from war, Turkey is still in a dilemma over how to deal with the humanitarian crisis caused by the Syrian war and its spillover refugee crisis in Europe.
On one hand, the Ankara government was criticized by EU for not doing enough to provide help to displaced Syrians and blasted yet again for not doing enough to stem the flow of refugees en route to Europe.
In a recent deal, EU offers 3 billion euros to Turkey in order to help cope with the massive surge of refugees coming in mostly from Syria and particularly those who have escaped from Aleppo as stated in a report by BBC News.
In another development, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had discussed with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on how to best manage the refugee crisis in partnership with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)- a collective defense pact in which Germany and Turkey are both members as mentioned in a report by USA Today.
