EU Turkey agree on plan to deal with migration crisis

(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) BRUSSELS Nov 29 (KUNA) -- The European Union and Turkey agreed Sunday to activate a Joint Action Plan to strengthen their bilateral relations and to take common steps to tackle the migration crisis.President of the European Council Donald Tusk speaking at a press conference at the end of a special EU-Turkey summit tonight said that the EU will offer three billion euro in support of the Syrian refugees hosted by Turkey."Let me state clearly that we do not expect anyone to guard our borders for us. That can and should only be done by Europeans. But we expect a major step towards changing the rules of the game when it comes to stemming the migration flow that is coming to the EU via Turkey" he said."We will also step up our assistance to Syrian refugees in Turkey through a new Refugee Facility of three billion euro" announced Tusk.They also discussed a range of other issues such counter-terrorism energy trade as well as geo-strategic issues of common concern he added.Speaking at the joint press conference Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglou he said the first EU-Turkey summit in 11 years agreed "to work shoulder to shoulder" to solve the migration crisis.He clarified that the three billion will not be not given to Turkey but to Syrian refugees.Davutoglou said the refugees are "victims of state terror by Assad regime and by terrorist Daesh (ISIL) group" and underlined that without a solution to the Syrian conflict the refugee crisis cannot be solved.He said Sunday's summit re-energised Turkey's membership process and they agreed to hold two EU-Turkey summits every year and other high level meetings to deepen their bilateral relations.He stressed that "2016 will be a key moment for EU-Turkey relations." On his part President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker said he expects the visa liberalization agreement with Turkey to be concluded by next year.A joint statement issued after the meeting said the EU welcomed the commitment by Turkey to accelerate the fulfilment of the Visa Roadmap."Both sides agree that the EU-Turkey readmission agreement will become fully applicable from June 2016 in order for the Commission to be able to present its third progress report in autumn 2016 with a view to completing the visa liberalisation process i.e. the lifting of visa requirements for Turkish citizens in the Schengen zone by October 2016 once the requirements of the Roadmap are met" said the statement.The summit also agreed to open chapter 17 in a bid to revive the EU-Turkey stalled membership talks. Out of 35 "policy chapters" for negotiations prior to EU membership only 13 have been opened so far with Turkey and only one completed.Turkey launched EU membership talks in 2005. (pickup previous) nk.bs