EU pledges new aid for Syrian refugees

At a crisis summit in Brussels, European Union leaders pledged 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to help UN agencies support Syrian refugees who remain in the Middle East.

The meeting's chairman Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, announced in the early hours of Thursday that the pledge was part of a range of actions agreed upon by the leaders who were meeting to discuss ways of tackling the overwhelming migration crisis.

Tusk, who chaired the meeting, said all 28 leaders were "absolutely sure that without regaining control of our external borders we have no chance to cope (with) this problem effectively."

"The conflicts in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Iraq, will not end anytime soon," Tusk said.

"This means today we're talking about millions of potential refugees trying to reach Europe, not thousands."

Leaders also agreed to set up "hotspots" by the end of November where EU officials could register and identify those who could be eligible for refugee protection.

'Cycle of mutual recriminations'

Tusk also urged member states to show solidarity and arrive at a sustainable way to bring the crisis under control.

He called for an end to "the cycle of mutual recriminations and misunderstandings" fuelling the split between the EU's richer west and poorer former communist east.

Meeting with Turkish President Erdogan

Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU's chief executive, told reporters that the summit was conducted in an "excellent" atmosphere that turned out to be less tense than some had forecast.

Tusk and Juncker added that they would host a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on October 5 as part of efforts to cooperate with Ankara in limiting the numbers of migrants reaching Greece.

The leaders also agreed to tighten controls using EU-backed border personnel on the bloc's external frontiers. Today's pledge followed a last-ditch deal earlier in the week to relocate 120,000 refugees across EU nations.

The plan attracted some heavy opposition from eastern European states, with Hungary's hard-line prime minister Viktor Orban angrily denouncing Germany's initiative in the crisis as "moral imperialism."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been criticized for her move last month to take in more Syrian refugees. The decision by Berlin has been blamed by several eastern European countries for fueling the inflow.

rc,ss/bw (Reuters, AFP, AP, dpa)