Turkey's Erdogan accuses EU of breaking its word

By Azernews

By Gunay Hasanova

Turkey hasn’t received the full amount of funds from the EU within the migration agreement, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, TRT Haber TV channel reported on October 3.

“The EU promised us three billion euros: we have received only 179 million euros out of that amount”, said Erdogan.

 “The promised money is not intended for the Turkish state, it is for Syrian refugees. The EU doesn’t keep its word. Turkey will continue to accept people fleeing the bombing and the war regardless of whether we get the money or not”.

The Heads of State and the EU Member States' governments agreed with Turkey upon a joint plan to combat the migration crisis in mid-March. The program is focusing on the return of illegal immigrants arriving from Greece to the territory of Turkey and accepting legal Syrian refugees in Turkey by the EU based principle of "one for one".

Currently, there are more than two million Syrian refugees in the territory of Turkey. Approximately 300,000 of them live in the camps and the rest are scattered over the Turkish provinces. Only Istanbul is host to 40,000 refugees from Syria. So far, Turkey has spent more than 10 billion dollars on refugee providence.

Earlier, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that if the EU doesn’t cancel visa regime with Turkey in mid-October, Ankara won’t be able to receive illegal migrants from the EU.

Turkey has along waited for its EU membership, while each application to accede to the European Union was frustrating for the government. Turkey, holding a status of an associate member at the Economic Community -- the predecessor of the EU since 1963 -- made an official application for entry on April 14, 1987.