Visa regime with Turkey means migrant problems for EU: PM

By Azernews

By Gunay Hasanova

If the European Union (EU) doesn’t agree to cancel visa regime with Turkey, the Union will have serious problems with illegal migrants, TRT Haber news channel quoted Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim as saying.

Binali Yildirim noted that the EU has to understand the situation of migrants.

Previously, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that if the European Union doesn’t cancel visa regime with Turkey in mid-October, Ankara won’t be able to receive illegal migrants from the EU, adding that the EU still has not paid $3 billion allocated for maintenance of refugees.

In turn, earlier Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned the EU that Turkey will have to withdraw from the implementation of the migrants return program that unless the visa facilitation occurs.

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.

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.