ANKARA (Sputnik) — Turkey should give Brussels $6.6 billion to take away all refugees residing in the country, rather than becoming a buffer state for the European Union in accordance with their refugee plan, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, president of the main Turkish opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), said Friday.
"Let us give 6 billion euros ($6.6 billion) to [the European Union] and let them take all Syrian, Afghan and Pakistani [migrants] themselves," Kilicdaroglu said, as quoted by the Hurriyet newspaper.
The Turkish politician added that the joint EU-Ankara refugee plan was turning Turkey into "a buffer province."
Turkey has demanded an additional 3 billion euros from the European Union to deal with migrants on top of the earlier 3 billion-euro EU pledge. In exchange for the additional funding, Ankara has offered to take back all undocumented migrants that enter the European Union through Turkey and swap them on a one-for-one basis for legal Syrian refugees who are seeking to enter the bloc.
