2024-04-05 08:59:40
Cyprus has appealed to the European Union to declare some areas in Syria “safe” so that it can return asylum seekers to it.
In an unusually clear statement, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said that the matter has become “very worrying” in recent weeks, after the arrival of more than 600 illegal immigrants from Lebanon was recorded within two days.
The Cypriot president said after a meeting with the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Mitsola, “I fully understand the challenges facing Lebanon, but exporting migrants to Cyprus should not be the solution and cannot be accepted.”
The Cypriot President discussed the issue with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday.
The Cypriot President considered that Lebanon should not “export” its immigration problem. He explained that he had a telephone conversation with the Prime Minister of the Lebanese caretaker government, Najib Mikati, related to this issue.
Cypriot Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou said, “The situation is gradually getting worse, and in the past few days we have witnessed an influx of worn-out boats and refugees endangering their lives,” and explained that human traffickers “just give them a compass set to 285 degrees, food and water for one day, and then they leave.”
The Minister of the Interior pointed out that “all indicators suggest that the flow of migrants will continue,” but the matter is exacerbated by the Lebanese authorities’ declining focus on stopping migration from its coasts in the past few months amid an escalation on the Lebanese-Israeli border.
Ioannou said that Cyprus also wants EU aid to Lebanon to be conditional on halting the flow of migrants.
Cyprus is located only 160 kilometers from Lebanon, which hosts hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, but if the European Union announces that there are areas in Syria that have become safe and free of conflict, this will allow the return of asylum seekers who arrive in European countries.
The European Union has also previously concluded agreements with several countries to help them deal with the increasing burdens of migration, and to prevent its eventual spread to member states of the bloc, while human rights groups have strongly criticized these agreements.
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2024-04-05 08:59:40