The European Union has urged Turkey to open its borders to thousands of Syrians fleeing an onslaught by government forces and intense Russian airstrikes.
Turkey kept its Oncupinar border crossing closed on Saturday despite a significant increase in the number of arrivals to the European gateway in the past 48 hours.
As many as 70,000 people are expected to head for the border in the coming days, said Suleyman Tapsiz, governor of Turkey’s Kilis border province. There are already between 30,000 and 35,000 displaced Syrians on the Syrian side of the border being cared for by Turkey. Aid workers said the refugees were being directed to nearby camps.
Fifteen Syrians injured in bombings near Aleppo were allowed into Turkey through the crossing late on Friday night, but the Turkish government had not directly responded to the EU’s comments on Saturday evening. “Our doors are not closed, but at the moment there is no need to host such people inside our borders,” Tapsiz said.
Although the Oncupinar crossing remained closed, the Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said after a meeting with EU foreign ministers in Amsterdam that his country would maintain its open border policy. Approximately 2.5 million Syrians are now living in Turkey.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the support being provided by the union to Turkey was aimed at guaranteeing that Ankara could protect and host all Syrians fleeing the war-torn country. On Thursday, the EU approved €3bn (£2.3bn) to help Turkey cope with the number of people.
EU foreign ministers have discussed with their counterparts from Balkan states possible ways of stemming the flow of people through the region. More than one million refugees, mostly Syrian, have arrived in the EU in the past 12 months. Most have crossed into Greece from Turkey before making their way through the Balkans to Germany and other countries such as Sweden.
Earlier this week, the EU said Greece had to re-establish full control over its border with Turkey to preserve the Schengen zone. If Greece failed to do so, Brussels could allow other member states to extend border controls for up to two years – an option officials say they want to avoid at all costs.
An estimated 850,000 people arrived in Greece last year, overwhelming its coast guard and reception facilities. Aid groups say the country is able to provide shelter for just 10,000 people – just over 1% of the total.
With Greece unable to control the influx, some EU nations are now looking to help Macedonia – which is not in the EU – stop them at its southern border before they reach the Schengen zone of border-free travel.
The Hungarian foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said: “If Greece is not ready or able to protect the Schengen zone and doesn’t accept any assistance from the EU then we need another defence line, which is obviously Macedonia and Bulgaria.”
Hungary’s right-wing government has taken one of the hardest lines against the refugee crisis and closed the main land route for arrivals into the EU last September. The country has led calls to build a fence along Greece’s northern border in the same way it built a razor-wire barrier along its own southern frontier last year.
Austria’s foreign minister, Sebastian Kurz, said the EU did not seem to appreciate the seriousness of the situation. “I say this very clearly – if we do not manage to control the situation ... our only option will be to cooperate with Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia,” he said after the Amsterdam meeting.
Nikola Poposki, the Macedonian foreign minister who was also in Amsterdam on Saturday, said its army had been deployed to bolster border security. “They’re making sure that we have decreased the illegal crossings through our border and we’re going to continue to make these efforts,” he said.