Turkey says EU hasn’t paid on deal to stop migrants

Billions promised is for communities, refugees, not country, spokesman says

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s president accused the European Union on Friday of failing to deliver funds it promised as part of a deal to stop migrants crossing the Aegean Sea, adding to fears that the agreement, which helped curtail the refugee surge to Europe’s heartland, could collapse.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the EU had pledged $6.7 billion in support of some 3 million refugees Turkey currently hosts, but has delivered only $204 million.

“What happened?” Erdogan asked. “No country can stand alone in this crisis. Unfortunately the promises on this issue are not kept.”

EU spokesman Maja Kocijancic denied the charges, saying billions that the EU is providing “is funding for refugees and host communities, not for Turkey.”

When the agreement was announced in March, the EU said only that the money would be disbursed “in close cooperation” with the Turkish government.

The dispute between Turkey and the EU comes a year after the lifeless body of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi was photographed on a Turkish beach, drawing the world’s attention to the plight of hundreds of thousands refugees who used the treacherous route across the Aegean while escaping wars and poverty in their countries.

The boy’s father, Abdullah Kurdi, was quoted by Germany’s Bild newspaper as saying this week that he’s glad the photo of his son’s body was published to “make clear to people what is happening” but he’s upset that more hasn’t been done for refugees since.

“Politicians said after the death of my family: never again!” he said. “Everyone allegedly wanted to do something after the photos that had so moved them. But what is happening now? The dying goes on and nobody’s doing anything.”

Along with up to $6.7 billion promised through 2018 to help the mostly Syrian refugees Turkey is hosting, the incentives for Turkey to agree to the migrant deal included fasttrack EU membership talks — as well as a visa waiver, which is conditional on Turkey modifying its definition of terrorism and what constitutes a terror act to ensure that journalists and academics aren’t arrested.

Erdogan’s comments came a day after visiting European Parliament President Martin Schulz failed to persuade his hosts to amend the tough anti-terrorism laws in exchange for lifting the visa restrictions for Turks.

The request was emphatically rejected.

“We have once again bluntly told the EU and Mr. Schulz that we cannot make an improvement in the Struggle Against Terrorism Law during the current conditions in the country,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said.

“Regarding the prevention of illegal migration, we stand behind our promises. We expect EU countries to do the same.” he said on Friday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a leading backer of the EU-Turkey pact, said that it “is in our mutual interest.” But she added in an interview with RTL television that Turkey hasn’t yet fulfilled the 72 conditions set for visa freedom to be granted — “and we will of course insist on the agreements being kept to by our side but also by the Turkish side.”

More than 1 million migrants and refugees entered Europe via Turkey and Greece last year. The flow slowed to a trickle earlier this year after Austria set in motion a string of border closures that shut down the Balkan refugee route to the European heartland and Turkey’s then-prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, hammered out the deal with Brussels.

In France, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Friday that the government has decided to dismantle the overcrowded migrant camp in the northern port city of Calais “in a controlled operation” as soon as possible.

Cazeneuve made the announcement during a visit to Calais, but gave no date for the closure.

His visit came three days before local businesses, dockers, truckers and farmers block a major highway to demand that the camp now holding record numbers of migrants, most trying to cross the English Channel, be shut down.

They plan to use their vehicles to block the A16 highway on Monday, a move aimed at paralyzing traffic on the route used to access the Eurotunnel train site and the port.

The minister met with local officials, business representatives and some of the 2,000 police officers who man roadways, the Eurotunnel train site and the port to keep migrants from hopping trucks to Britain.