EU official: Turkey will gain from curbing migration to Cyprus

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A senior European Union official says Turkey ‘has a lot to gain’ if it works with the 27-member bloc to stem the arrival of migrants from its airports and coasts to the ethnically divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus

ATHIENOU, Cyprus – Turkey “has a lot to gain” if it works with the European Union to stem the arrival of migrants from its airports and coasts to the ethnically divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus, a senior government official said on Sunday. EU.

European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas said he hoped the Turkish authorities would show the same level of cooperation in curbing the arrival of migrants to Cyprus as they did in helping the EU to dealing with a Belarusian “hybrid attack” of pushing migrants across its border into Poland.

“Listen, Turkey, like all our other neighbors, needs to understand one very simple thing: that on the issue of migration, they have a lot to gain if they work with Europe instead of working against Europe,” Schinas said.

Schinas will travel to Turkey next month for talks to assess the means by which migrants reach breakaway northern Cyprus, either by flights from Istanbul or by boat from the country’s southern coast. Some 85% of migrants who reach the north slip through a UN-controlled buffer zone that divides the island along ethnic lines.

The EU official spoke after traveling several frequently used migrant crossing routes along the buffer zone. The division of the island took place in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup aimed at union with Greece.

Cypriot officials have accused Turkey of deliberately funneling migrants to the north of the island. The buffer zone is not recognized as an external border of the EU and the authorities have refrained from building walls. But officials say they will use “high-tech measures” to limit crossings of the buffer zone.

“What I see here today along the Green Line is shocking, it’s a completely different perception of the problem than seeing it from afar,” Schinas said, adding that Cyprus, with its limited resources, has to shoulder an “extremely large and disproportionate” burden. .

Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said Cyprus had received more migrants per capita in recent years than any other EU country.

Schinas said the EU was working with Cypriot authorities to thwart migrant crossings. He also said that Cyprus should receive significant financial assistance to deal with the arrivals of migrants and to speed up the repatriations of those whose asylum applications have been rejected.

“When it comes to migration, we in Europe must stop working as firefighters rushing from crisis to crisis and work as the architects of a new comprehensive and coherent European framework on the management of migration and asylum issues” , said Schinas.

Nouris said that Cyprus will ask the EU border agency Frontex to monitor the waters between Turkey and Cyprus and send a representative to Istanbul airport and the independent north of the island to verify the presence of immigrants.

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