Holland PM to Kurdistan 24: Turkey-like agreements with EU countries will solve migrant crisis

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The European Union (EU) must come to Turkey-like agreements with other countries to solve the migrant and refugee crisis in Europe, Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte said on Thursday.

Rutte made the comments to Kurdistan 24 correspondent Barzan Hassan after his arrival at the doorstep of the European Council in Brussels where EU leaders are expected to discuss the migrant crisis in the region.

“First of all, we have to decide on how to tackle the primary migration [crisis], particularly how to kill this business model of these cynical boat smugglers, people dying in the Mediterranean Sea. That means trying to come to Turkey-like agreements with countries in Africa,” he said.

In 2016, Ankara signed an agreement with the EU to control the influx of migrants through the Aegean Sea by cracking down on human traffickers and have since been working to maintain and strengthen cooperation.    

Rutte admitted that while the flow of migrants is much lower than in 2015 and 2016, Europe is “not ready for the next crisis,” noting countries like Spain and Italy “still have, at this moment, to shoulder all the burden.”

“Even if you are able to conclude Turkey-type agreements with other countries” the EU will still “be faced and confronted, of course, with migration pressure,” the Dutch Prime Minister explained. “But then it is more controllable.”

Since the civil war began in Syria in 2011 followed by the so-called Islamic State’s emergence in the country and neighboring Iraq in mid-2014, over three million people have sought refuge abroad with Europe seeing a large influx of migrants through Turkey.

(Additional reporting by Kurdistan 24 correspondent Barzan Hassan in Belgium)