EU to offer Turkey aid, trade help despite rights concerns

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders are set Thursday to provide new incentives to Turkey to improve cooperation on migration and trade despite democratic backsliding in the country and lingering concern about its energy exploration ambitions in the Mediterranean Sea.

EU diplomats said before the videoconference summit that the leaders will offer Turkey a “positive agenda” rather than brandish threats or sanctions. The aim is take advantage of a lull in tensions between Greece, Cyprus and Turkey and to avoid any hostile act that could undermine a new peace effort for Cyprus.

“The EU has parked sanctions in the drawer for now. But, on the flip side, the bloc might not have much to offer Turkey in the way of carrots,” said Alissa de Carbonnel at the International Crisis Group think-tank.

The EU is keen to resuscitate the 2016 “EU Turkey Statement” — which massively reduced migrant arrivals into the Greek islands — and an update of its terms is likely. Under it, the EU offered Turkey some 6 billion euros ($7.1 billion) for Syrian refugees and other incentives to prevent people leaving.

“I think it should continue to be implemented and continue to be the key framework for cooperation on migration,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said last week. Borrell is submitting a report to the leaders on the troubled state of EU-Turkey ties.

For Borrell, the deal saved lives, stopped most people trying to cross the Aegean Sea to islands like Lesbos and Samos, and improved things for refugees in Turkey. But for aid groups, it created open-air prisons where thousands have languished in squalid conditions while others were blocked in Turkey.

The agreement ground to a standstill a year ago as the coronavirus spread and after Turkey, angered by a lack of EU support for its invasion of northern Syria, gave...