MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Turkey has long been calling for a buffer zone on the border with Syria where camps for refugees could be set up to take the load off overcrowded camps on the Turkish side of the border.
"They are still talking about safety zones. Unfortunately, the European Union is also starting to take the concept of security zones as a given under blackmail from Turkey. At least when [US President Barack] Obama was in Hannover, [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel said at a press conference that ‘we support the idea of security zones’, which Obama immediately publicly disowned, but it sounded symptomatic," Lavrov said.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Merkel on April 24, Obama said the so-called safe zones in Syria would be impractical short of a military contribution to "take over a chunk of that country."
Earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has repeatedly voiced support for creating a safe zone in Syria.
