Turkey, EU cooperation 'key' to refugee crisis solution

ANKARA

Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni has highlighted the importance of cooperation between Europe and Turkey to resolve the ongoing refugee crisis.

Addressing a seminar organized by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe about migration in the Italian capital Rome Friday, Gentiloni said Europe must handle and reduce influx of refugees into Europe.

Noting the upcoming summit between EU and Turkey in March 7 in Brussels over the refugee crisis, he said: "Cooperation with Turkey is essential and it is one of the keys for managing the refugee crisis. We demanded from Ankara to reinforce border controls and to use Europe's financial support [of 3 billion euros] efficiently".

"The summit in March 7 will be an opportunity to convey this message to Turkey again," he added.

Lamberto Zannier, OSCE secretary-general, said cooperation over the refugee crisis must be coordinated strategically by taking into account where the refugees were coming from.

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov, who shut the borders of his country with Greece in order to not allow refugees to pass through, said European countries had ignored the Balkans and remembered it only after the refugee crisis emerged.

Ivanov also added that Greece should be rescued from the refugees via an air corridor, not through the Balkans.

Turkey will meet the EU's 28 leaders on March 7 for a wide-ranging summit that is expected to focus on the refugee crisis.

Hosting more than 2.5 million refugees, the highest number in the world, Turkey is a major transit country for refugees and asylum seekers seeking to enter Europe via the Aegean.

Of the more than 1.1 million refugees who arrived in the EU last year, more than 850,000 arrived by sea to Greece from Turkey, according to the International Organization for Migration. Over the course of the year, 805 people died in the Aegean.