Arab diaspora

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas announced on Wednesday that Germany will donate an additional €1 billion ($1.22 billion) in aid to Syria and neighboring countries who are hosting Syrian refugees.

"In Syria alone there are still more than 13 million people who are dependent on humanitarian aid," Maas said as he arrived in Brussels for a humanitarian aid drive for Syria.

''The European Union will provide Turkey with an additional € 3 billion to help Syrian refugees over the next two years.''

This was stated by the head of European diplomacy Federica Moghereini. "We will give Turkey another 3 billion euros in the next two years," she said at the second Donor Syria conference in Brussels.

Turkey has been very generous against Syrian refugees, but it needs international solidarity especially to help the children refugees, according to Philippe Duamelle, UNICEF Representative in Turkey.

Editor's note: A previous version of this interview contained minor spelling errors, now corrected

A growing number of Syrian refugees in Germany are seeking to return to Turkey as a new German legislation has introduced new barriers to family reunification, local media reported on April 12.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on April 11 launched a new two-year plan aiming to further improve lives of Syrian refugees in Turkey. 

The dire conditions in which thousands of migrants and refugees live at the Moria camp on the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos is the main story on the front page of Hurriyet newspaper published ahead of the European Union summit with Turkey on Monday.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on March 20 praised Turkey for sticking to an EU-Turkey refugee agreement in countering irregular migration and improving the living conditions of Syrian refugees.

Turkey has strongly criticized the European Union for not keeping the promises it made to Turkey through a comprehensive migrant deal brokered in 2016, calling on the bloc to transfer 3 billion euros to be spent on Syrian refugees directly and without any delay. 

Notwithstanding a rise in tensions between Brussels and Ankara - recently exacerbated by Turkey's increasingly aggressive stance toward Greece and Cyprus - the European Commission will be approving an additional 3 billion euros in funding for Syrian refugees living in Turkey, EU officials said on Wednesday, Ekathimerini reported.