To keep Syrian refugees safe

German Chancellor Angela Merkel advanced the idea of a safe zone in the north of Syria to stem the flow of migrants to Europe, a proposal long advocated by Turkey but that never came to happen, at a press conference held with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in the Turkish city of Gaziantep on Saturday.

Merkel, accompanied by EU Council President Donald Tusk, EU Deputy Commissioner Frans Timmermans and Davutoglu, on Saturday visited the Nizip 1 camp, that hosts nearly 10,000 Syrian refugees, saying that Ankara had made the “greatest contribution” by taking in nearly 3 million migrants.

Turkey is hosting around 2.7 million Syrians who fled their war-torn country.

With the number of refugees fleeing the war zone in Syria showing no sign of decreasing, especially in view of the faltering UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva between the Syrian opposition and Damascus, the establishment of such a free zone acquires an added sense of urgency.

The EU’s 3-billion-euro pledge to help Turkey is meant to keep Syrian refugees from crossing the Aegean Sea into Europe. The financial aid is to be used to improve the living conditions of the refugees and help them send their children to school.

The proposed “safe zones” in Syria, which would shelter refugees, would also help Brussels and Ankara control the influx of migrants to Europe.

The UN, however, warned against “safe zones”, unless there is a way to guarantee the safety of refugees. 

Human rights groups, on the other hand, reject the EU migrant deal with Ankara altogether, saying that it is deeply flawed and needs to be reassessed.

The deal led to a decline in migrant arrivals to European shores from 56,000 in February to about 7,800 over the past 30 days, European Commission statistics show.

Whatever is done to save Syrians — the war in their country claimed close to 400,000 lives, according to the latest UN reports — should be embraced, not rejected.

Besides stemming the flow of Syrian refugees to Europe, safe zones can be expected to also reduce the number of refugees to other neighbouring countries, like Jordan and Lebanon.

Over 1.4 million Syrian refugees have sought sanctuary in Jordan so far, greatly straining the already meagre resources of the Kingdom.

Above all considerations, the life and safety of Syrians must figure high in promoting the much-delayed step of creating safe zones within Syria.

The US and other Western countries should follow Berlin’s example and support an idea Turkey had been pushing for a long time.