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Czechs Unwilling to Receive More Refugees, Seek to Settle Crises in MidEast

© REUTERS / Igor ZehA Czech police officer writes a number on the skin of a refugee in Breclav, Czech Republic September 1, 2015. Picture taken September 1, 2015
A Czech police officer writes a number on the skin of a refugee in Breclav, Czech Republic September 1, 2015. Picture taken September 1, 2015 - Sputnik International
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The Czech Republic insists that the EU migrant crisis can be solved only by settling the crisis in Syria, a Czech lawmaker in the European Parliament told Sputnik, adding that the country was doing enough by helping migrants logistically and financially.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Czech authorities have resisted the European Commission’s plan to share out refugees across the bloc according to a binding quota system.

It has proposed to take in only 1,500 asylum seekers, with Germany accommodating the majority of the 160,000 refugees in question.

"We emphasize that there should be peaceful settlement of the crisis there [Syria] so that the refugees have no reason to flee," Jiri Mastalka said. "Secondly, we provide aid in two directions – regulating the flow of refugees – policemen, army, equipment, to support the Schengen border states, and we have provided money for humanitarian aid."

"If Germany can accept more, that is their business," Mastalka stressed. "We believe there should be no quotas… It is not the Czech Republic that is guilty for the crisis in Libya, bombing and the destruction of Syria."

Mastalka stressed the Czech Republic knew its capabilities and could not stretch its budget to accommodate a larger number of asylum seekers. He warned of a possible rise in neo-Nazi sentiment, saying that, "if the migrants accommodation policies are not thought-through, the country could suffer a lot."

In this photo taken on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2015, Syrian army personnel fire a cannon in Latakia province, about 12 from the border with Turkey in Syria - Sputnik International
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An opinion poll, conducted by the UK-based Populus research and strategy consultancy exclusively for Sputnik and published earlier on Tuesday, found that 73 percent of Czech respondents opposed the Brussels-prompted quota scheme for distributing immigrants across EU countries.

The lawmaker added that his country, a member of the EU borderless Schengen area, was strictly following the Dublin Regulation which requires asylum requests to be processed by the first EU country that a refugee enters.

"We strictly follow the rules of who can be granted asylum in the Czech Republic and we refute the quotas, what is dictated from Brussels," the lawmaker argued.

On Sunday, Czech President Milos Zeman said he would challenge the obligatory quotas in court.

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