EU-Turkey refugee talks not tackling root causes: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Marcus Papadopoulos, publisher and editor of Politics First in London, to discuss a recent draft deal between the European Union and Turkey on refugees.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Well tell me, what do you make of this whole Turkey-EU deal in dealing with the refugees?

Papadopoulos: Well I have to say and I am going to be very candid, the discussions which have been going on amongst the EU leaders about how to deal with the refugee crisis are futile. Why do I say they are futile? Because they are not honing in on the reasons as to why Europe is engulfed by a refugee crisis. And the roots of the refugee crisis are Western intervention, Western meddling in Syria.

If the West, which of course is ultimately the United States of America but also the European Union, … had the West not have intervened in Syria, had the West not started arming the various terrorist groups in Syria, there would not have been the conflict that there is today in Syria, but because the European Union played a leading role in destabilizing Syria, in weakening the Syrian state, in providing political support, military support, financial support to various Islamist groups in Syria, it is no surprise that there was going to be a dreadful conflict and that thousands upon thousands, hundreds of thousands of people from Syria would leave.

So the discussions today in Paris and previous discussions, they really do not have any significance because they are not tackling the roots. Now in regard to Turkey, Turkey is an extraordinarily duplicitous, two-faced country because of course Turkey along with the West has played another integral role in the Syrian conflict.

Turkey has allowed its country to be a transit for Islamist fighters and Jihadists going into Syria but now the Turks are trying to get financial concessions from the European Union. So Turkey is effectively saying we could do something about the refugee crisis if you give us X amounts of money. Well what we are dealing with is two parties which ultimately are bickering amongst themselves over something that they have caused. So we could say that the thieves, that the murderers started to fall out between themselves now.  

Press TV: Well in the interim like you said the root of the problem is not being dealt with but looking at the refugees themselves now with this situation, do you think that Turkey, you talked about the basic two-faced policies, the duplicitous policies of Turkey, what about in the way that they possibly will deal with the refugees themselves because it seems that no one is actually talking about what is best for these people?

Papadopoulos: Well of course you know there is first and foremost the human dimension of the refugee crisis and it is a terrible, terrible tragedy what we are seeing. However, how can anyone in Brussels trust Turkey when Turkey is without a doubt allowing hundreds of thousands of refugees to pass through its territory but it could stop them on Turkish territory but the Turkish government is allowing these refugees to cross Turkish territory and go into the European Union?

So I do not believe that any trust …, there should not be any trust in Turkey, there should be no faith in what the Turks are saying but regrettably we also do have to acknowledge that a significant percentage of those refugees are not genuine refugees. A lot of them are would-be terrorists and that is something which needs to be addressed but it is no surprise whatsoever. You know ISIS (Daesh), al-Nusra, the so-called Free Syrian Army. They saw an opportunity to access Europe, to access the European Union through the refugee crisis, so no surprise that many of these so-called refugees are of course terrorists.

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