The
chancellor has little to show for her sixth meeting with Turkey’s
leaders since October.
Angela
Merkel departed Ankara late Monday as she arrived: empty handed.
By MATTHEW
KARNITSCHNIG and JANOSCH DELCKER 2/8/16, 8:03 PM CET
The German leader
traveled to Turkey to nudge Ankara into fulfilling its commitments
under a €3 billion deal agreed with the EU in November to stop
refugees from heading to Europe.
Instead, she found
herself confronted with fresh complications and new demands from
Ankara.
A surge of refugees
fleeing Russian air assaults and a siege of Aleppo, Syria’s largest
city, and the surrounding area prompted Turkey to seal its border
over the weekend. About 35,000 refugees have amassed there.
“We are on the
verge of a human tragedy,” Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu
said after meeting Merkel.
Merkel condemned the
Russian air attacks, vowing to pursue the matter with the U.N.
Security Council in New York, as well as the actions of the Syrian
army.
“We’re not only
shocked, but horrified by the human suffering of ten thousands of
people in recent days that was caused by the bomb strikes, conducted
primarily by Russian forces,” Merkel said.
Merkel noted that
Russia had supported a U.N. resolution in December calling for an end
to attacks on civilians.
With thousands more
likely to flee Aleppo as government troops advance on the rebel
stronghold, the number of Syrians seeking refuge in Turkey is likely
to surge.
That means Ankara
will have even less incentive to accommodate Europe by taking
measures to keep the refugees from leaving.
Turkey, which has
taken the lion’s share of Syrians fleeing their country’s civil
war, is at the center of Merkel’s strategy to bring the refugee
crisis under control. In Merkel’s view, the only realistic option
to stem the flow of refugees in the short term is to secure Turkish
cooperation.
Turkey agreed at a
special summit with the EU in November to implement a host of
measures, including improving conditions for refugees, to induce them
to stay. But the agreement has been hampered by disputes over the
money and accusations by EU officials that Turkey hasn’t met its
end of the bargain.
Whatever the case,
the number of refugees traveling to Europe hasn’t dwindled, forcing
countries to re-erect border controls and threatening the EU’s
passport-free Schengen agreement.
Merkel, facing a
populist backlash at home over her handling of the crisis, has been
desperate to find a quick solution.
The talks on Monday
were Merkel’s sixth official meeting with the Turkish leadership
since October, prompting German media to quip that she sees Davutoglu
and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan more frequently than some
of her own ministers.
The Turkish leaders
(Merkel met Davutoglu and Erdoğan separately) showered ceremony on
the Germany leader, greeting her with an honor guard and military
band, but they offered little substance.
Turkey’s promised
steps fall short of the firm commitments Berlin has been hoping for.
Merkel’s biggest
challenge in dealing with the Turks is that she has almost no
leverage. Turkey has little sympathy for the refusal of some EU
countries to take in refugees and has been frustrated by delays in
the arrival of the promised aid.
What Turkey offered
Merkel on Monday was largely symbolic in nature.
For example, Ankara
agreed to cooperate with a German aid organizations to provide
assistance to refugees and work more closely with German police to
stop smugglers from sneaking refugees over the border. Merkel and
Davutoglu also said they would explore enlisting NATO assistance to
help patrol Turkey’s coastal border with Greece.
Such steps though
important, fall short of the firm commitments Berlin has been hoping
for.
Merkel’s political
rivals characterized the trip as waste of time.
“Repeated trips to
Ankara are no substitute for a refugee policy developed by the
government itself and that’s still missing,” Alexander Graf
Lambsdorff of the Free Democrats, the deputy president of the
European Parliament, said in a radio interview.
Others accused
Merkel of pandering to Turkey, while looking the other way as Ankara
cracked down on its Kurdish minority.
“We should be
careful that Germany does not fall victim blackmail by a regime that
doesn’t have the smallest thing in common with our moral concepts,
a regime, which shares the responsibility for this whole disaster,”
Left party leader Sahra Wagenknecht said in a newspaper interview.
Another concern is
money. Ankara started pressing Europe for additional funds even
before it received its first instalment on the November deal, arguing
that it has already assumed a much greater burden than any other
country in the region.
Asked Monday whether
Europe would have to pony up more cash to help Turkey manage the
crisis, Merkel, looking fatigued alongside a smiling Davutoglu,
signaled the EU would likely have little choice.
“First I’d say
we should spend this money and once it’s gone, we can talk again,”
she said.
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