صراط عشق صراط عشق
Turkey as hosting the largest refugee population in the world plays a key role in regulating illegal migration to the European Union. Turkey’s approximately four million refugees come mainly from war-torn countries or countries with fragile states in and around the eastern Mediterranean, the majority consisting of 3.6 million people from Syria.
According to official numbers, there are also 129.200 Afghan, 125.000 asylum seekers, and 4200 refugees, 167,325 Iraqis (162,700 asylum seekers, 4565 refugees), and 24,300 Iranian asylum seekers. A considerable Somalian population is also rising in big cities.
It was clear that the EU saw the refugee crisis of 2015 – when over 911.000 refugees, mainly Syrians, crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece and other routes to the EU to seek asylum on EU soil – as a threat to its own security and stability.
Named by Frontex (European Border and Coast Guard Agency) as the key eastern Mediterranean route for illegal migration, the crossings became a major strategic issue for EU member states. At this point, Europe’s political elite opted for a pragmatic preventive strategy and sought to coordinate with the Turkish AKP (Justice and Development) government to try and curb the migratory influx.
On 18 March 2016, the two sides signed a statement, stipulating that all migrants without asylum status would be sent back to Turkey from Greece.
