PM will argue at Brussels meeting for release of billions of euros to help Ankara feed and shelter nearly 3 million refugees

David Cameron is to back pleas for money to be passed to the Turkish government to help it deal with the growing migration crisis threatening to overwhelm Europe’s borders.

The prime minister will argue for the release of billions of pounds of aid at a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on Monday, just hours after the government announced that the UK military was to join Nato forces intercepting and returning people trying to reach the European Union from Turkey.

It comes as the Turkish government is being accused of human rights violations and a clampdown on opposition groups and the free Turkish media.

The agenda at the summit will be dominated by trying to speed up work on a joint action plan agreed with Turkey last year, aimed at keeping refugees outside Europe.

The EU pledged €3bn (£2.3bn) to help feed and shelter nearly 3 million refugees living in Turkey, as well as easing visa restrictions for 75 million Turks and re-examining talks over Turkey’s entry to the EU.

In return Ankara pledged to crack down on people smugglers and stem the flow of people travelling to Europe.

Michael Fallon, the UK defence secretary, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the prime minister would back calls from the Turkish government for the money to be released.

“Europe has promised Turkey aid and that now needs to be delivered. The coastguard there needs to be strengthened, and we need to do as much as we can to help Turkey, which has taken in a huge number of migrants not just from Syria, but is now taking in people who are trying to get across Turkey to get in to Europe,” he said.



“As you can imagine with thousands of people trying to cross this year, the Turkish coastguard and Greek authorities are becoming frankly overwhelmed and we need to do more to help them to bring up their capacity to get a picture of where the smuggling is being attempted and above all, to start returning people.”



The prime minister announced that the Royal Navy was deploying the amphibious landing ship RFA Mounts Bay as the first UK contribution to the Nato deployment in the Aegean Sea. The vessel, which carries a Wildcat helicopter, will join naval vessels from Germany, Canada, Turkey and Greece as part of Nato’s first intervention in the migrant crisis.

The announcement came several hours after another boat carrying people sank with the loss of 25 lives, including at least three children. Fifteen people were rescued after the boat capsized near the Turkish resort of Didim.

Fallon said that sending migrants back to Turkey would help stem the flow. “What has not happened so far anywhere in Europe is that people haven’t been returned. Once they are being returned, there is less prospect in them paying money and the smugglers making money out of what is a very dangerous crossing,” he said.

The Turkish deputy ambassador to Britain, Cem Işik, said his government had already spent more than €8bn (£6.2bn) on the crisis.



“The EU has to work with Turkey. There must be a sharing of the burden and the responsibility. There was a joint action plan announced. There are commitments which will be discussed,” he said.

EU leaders will meet the Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, at the special summit in Brussels on Monday, where they are expected to announce the closure of the Balkan route used by people to travel to northern European states after their arrival in Greece.

Işik added that only negligible amounts of money had arrived so far.

“First of all, this [money] is not going to go into Turkey’s pockets. It’s going to go to the Syrians directly. The amount that has come in from those €3bn is negligible so far. It has been promised but we haven’t seen anything substantial.”

But he denied that Turkey was using the refugee crisis as a form of blackmail to press its longstanding application for EU membership.

“Turkey is not blackmailing Europe, but it is disheartening to see that Europe has remembered Turkey only after the migration crisis last summer.”

This weekend, the country’s biggest daily, Zaman, was reopened under new management two days after the government seized its assets and removed the editor-in-chief.



Turkey ranks 149th among 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders.

Işik dismissed criticisms of the Turkish government for closing newspapers and throwing dozens of journalists into jail.

He said: “When you look at who is in prison you will see that there are people who are there for murder, for espionage. There are no journalists in prison for being journalists.”