Turkey seeks more EU cash over migrants

TURKEY has indicated that it wants more financial aid from the EU just months after a €3 billion (£2.3 billion) migration deal.

On a day when at least 43 people, including 17 children, drowned after their boats capsized off two Greek islands near the Turkish coast, the Turkish prime minister suggested the figure was not enough to deal with the crisis.

Although there have already been issues with Ankara receiving the money from the deal done last year, Ahmet Davutoglu suggested in a meeting yesterday with Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, that if Brussels was serious about sharing the refugee burden, then there would need to be more talks about money.

“The €3 billion is just to show political will to share the burden,” he said.

Turkey, which shares a border with war-torn Syria, plays a pivotal role as it is a launchpad for thousands of migrants. More than two million Syrian refugees have fled there since 2011.

Police in Germany have arrested a former Syrian jihadist on suspicion of war crimes over the alleged kidnapping of a United Nations observer.

The 24-year-old, named only as Suliman AS under German privacy laws, was living in a Stuttgart apartment at the time of his arrest.

Questions were raised about entryvetting after prosecutors refused to comment on his immigration status or whether he is among the hundreds of thousands of Syrians in Germany as asylum seekers.