Turkish Foreign Min. threatens to scrap EU-Turkey deal on refugee crisis

He accused the EU of failing to keep its part of the bargain

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu threatened to annul the agreement between Turkey and the EU on the refugee crisis, if the latter did not uphold its part of the deal. Speaking before the country’s national assembly, Cavusoglu said the EU was slow in fulfilling its obligations emanating from the deal, despite the fact that refuge flows to the EU had dwindled. Turkey has undertaken the commitment to control the refugee numbers leaving its shores and to readmit any refugees ineligible to stay in the EU. On its part, the EU has promised to accept an equal amount of refugees as Turkey does and release funds to the country to aid it in dealing with the hundreds of thousands of refugees staying in Turkey. Turkey has also managed to ensure a speeding up of talks for admission into the EU. Cavusoglu did not mince words and threatened to scrap the agreement, expecting an immediate implementation of the agreed commitments on the part of the EU. His speech came on the heels of a fiery address by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan a few days ago, who accused the Europeans of incompetence in collaborating among themselves to combat terrorism.