Putin’s call to end refugee crisis

Europe should help rebuild President Bashar al-Assad’s Syria to allow refugees to return home and to prevent new flows of migrants, Vladimir Putin told Angela Merkel at a summit over the weekend.

President Putin arrived at the talks more than half an hour late after earlier appearing at the wedding of Karin Kneissl, Austria’s foreign minister.

With the aim of using European divisions over migration to support Russia’s policy in backing Assad during the civil war, the Russian president called for the reconstruction of Syria to allow millions of refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Europe to return home. ‘‘We need to strengthen the humanitarian effort in the Syrian conflict,’’ he said before an evening meeting with the German chancellor at her official Schloss Meseberg retreat. ‘‘By that I mean, above all, humanitarian aid to the Syrian people, and help [for] the regions where refugees living abroad can return to. This is potentially a huge burden for Europe.’’

Germany has accepted over a million asylum seekers since 2015, including many Syrian refugees, in an influx that has politically weakened Merkel and deeply divided the EU.

Merkel called for Russia to help prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Idlib, the last major bastion of Syrian rebels, and avoided the issue of backing for the Assad dictatorship. ‘‘This does not create a peace order. Germany attaches great importance to us starting a political process,’’ she said, urging constitutional reform and elections after an end to fighting.

During talks on Ukraine, she pressed Putin to accept the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force to monitor a ceasefire between Ukrainian military forces and Russianbacked separatists in the Donbass region.

In an interview with the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Heiko Maas, Germany’s foreign minister, said he was ‘‘cautiously optimistic’’ that the UN mission could save a four-year old peace deal signed in Minsk, allowing the EU to lift sanctions against Russia.

– The Times