Turkey: NATO's Stoltenberg says plan to limit refugee flow working

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg met with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara to discuss the military alliance's operations in the region, Thursday. The NATO boss said "we have seen a significant reduction in the numbers" of refugees crossing into Europe since the implementation of plans to stem the migratory flow.
Stoltenberg said, however, that "smugglers are trying to get people over the Aegean Sea" and NATO has to be "prepared that if we leave then we can see a return of the high numbers of people trying to cross the Aegean Sea in an illegal and dangerous way. So we have to stay there as long as needed, we do this in very close cooperation with Turkey and Greece and the European Union border agency Frontex."
Cavusoglu meanwhile emphasised the Turkish definition of the People's Protection Units (YPG) as "terrorists" and said "there is no difference between the PKK and these organisations." He added that in Syria and Iraq, "NATO should actually train the local forces, increase their capacity, re-structure them, and [then] we can have a much more powerful fight against terrorsim."
Courtesy to TRT