12 October 2015•Update: 13 October 2015
BERLIN
German Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit Turkey on Sunday for talks on the fight against terrorism, the civil war in Syria and the refugee crisis, her spokesman announced on Monday.
Merkel’s visit comes after the attacks outside Ankara’s main train station on Saturday that killed 97 people, which raised concerns in Western capitals over the stability of a key NATO ally neighboring Syria.
“As Chancellor has expressed in her condolence message to Prime Minister Davutoglu, this attack is a cowardly act directed against civil rights, democracy and peace,” Steffen Seibert said at a press conference in Berlin.
The attack targeted left-wing and pro-Kurdish protestors who had gathered for a peace rally, and the investigation was focused on the terrorist organization Daesh as the primary suspect.
“A stable Turkey is in the interest of Germany and the EU,” stressed Seibert.
Germany’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said that following Saturday’s bomb attack, Germany wanted to intensify political dialogue with the Turkish leadership.
“For us, Turkey’s political stability, its democracy is a very important anchor of stability for the whole region,” he said, at Monday's regular press conference.
Chancellor Merkel will meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu during her one-day visit.
“The joint fight against terrorism, the situation in Syria [and] the efforts to address the refugee crisis [...] will be the main topics during these talks,” Seibert said.
Ahead of her visit to Ankara, Merkel will meet European leaders at a summit in Brussels on Oct. 15-16 to discuss Syria and the refugee crisis.
The EU presented Turkey with a draft action plan last week to halt the flow of refugees into Europe.
The proposal, which is currently negotiated between EU and Turkish officials, aims to keep refugees from Syria and other conflict zones within Turkey, offering up to 1 billion euros ($1.13 billion) in humanitarian assistance for refugees hosted in the country.
The plan foresees closer cooperation between the EU and Turkey to improve border security, and effectively fight against human smugglers.
The EU also offered to take in Syrian refugees from Turkey but no concrete numbers were mentioned in the draft, as several EU member states still oppose resettling refugees in line with quotas.
