STRASBOURG (Sputnik) – Syria should be restored in two to three years and then people can be relocated from Europe back home, the head of Greece’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe told Sputnik on Monday.
“The international community should create the conditions in Syria for the refugees who fled to Europe to be relocated back home,” Dimitris Vitsas said.
He added that the European Union does not provide Greece, one of the countries most affected by the refugee crisis, with sufficient support to help it cope with the influx of asylum seekers.
Athens needs to organize at least two additional relocation camps and six hotspots for hosting migrants within the country, the lawmaker said.
The Greek lawmaker also called for the end of Syrian bombings, stressing that this will not help stabilize the situation in the country and will not stop the migration crisis.
"Continuing the war in Syria is the cause for migration and refugees. We must stop bombing Syria. And we must all deal with ISIS. Peace in Syria is one thing for people to stop being refugees," Dimitris Vitsas said.
His speech came soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with the CBS and PBS channels that the only way to resolve the Syrian crisis is through supporting the country's legitimate government in its fight against terrorism.
Syria has been in a state of a civil war since 2011. Government forces have been fighting on multiple fronts, against moderate opposition groups and numerous extremist insurgent groups, including Islamic State and the Nusra Front.
A US-led international coalition has been conducting airstrikes against radical Islamist positions in Syria without receiving approval from Damascus or the UN Security Council. The international community has sponsored several rounds of intra-Syrian peace talks, however, a final resolution to the Syrian conflict has yet to be reached.
The Syrian civil war has led to the highest refugee population in the world, with over 4 million refugees having fled Syria to neighboring Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt, according to UN data. In recent months, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have made perilous journeys to the European Union in search of refuge.
