ANKARA (Sputnik) — A no-fly zone and a safety zone, as well as increased training and equipment for Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters are necessary conditions to ease the high numbers of Syrians fleeing to Europe and other states, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday.
Previously, Turkey proposed a buffer zone in northern Syria, but the United States and NATO do not support this initiative.
“If we want to put an end to the flow of refugees, we need to fulfill three conditions: training and equipment [of 'moderate opposition' – the FSA], creating the security zone that will protect refugees from terrorists, as well as creating of the no-fly zone in northern Syria,” Erdogan stressed, speaking at a joint briefing with the European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels.
Erdogan also added that Turkey has so far welcomed some 2.5 million refugees from Syria and Iraq.
According to the EU border agency Frontex, some 630,000 migrants have arrived in the EU since the beginning of 2015.
