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U.N. Urges Countries to Take in 480,000 Syrian Refugees U.N. Urges Countries to Take in 480,000 Syrian Refugees
(35 minutes later)
GENEVA — Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations called on Wednesday for countries to accept about half a million Syrian refugees, criticizing political leaders who have responded to the migrant crisis by demonizing asylum seekers. GENEVA — The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on Wednesday exhorted countries around the world to step up to their responsibilities and take in half a million Syrian refugees, rebuking political leaders who he said had instead resorted to demonizing asylum seekers.
Mr. Ban, opening a one-day ministerial conference in Geneva convened by the United Nations refugee agency, called for “an exponential increase in global solidarity” and urged countries to accept about 480,000 Syrians over the next three years. Opening a one-day ministerial conference in Geneva convened by the United Nations refugee agency, Mr. Ban called for “an exponential increase in global solidarity” in urging countries to accept about 480,000 Syrians over the next three years.
“Neighboring countries have done far more than their share,” Mr. Ban said, alluding to the nearly five million refugees taken in by Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. “Others must now step up.” “Neighboring countries have done far more than their share,” Mr. Ban said, alluding to the nearly five million refugees received by Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. “Others must now step up.”
More than a million migrants reached European shores last year, and the European Union has struggled to come up with a coherent and effective response to the huge influx of people fleeing conflict and persecution, most notably in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Demonizing refugees and migrants was “not only demeaning, offensive and counterproductive but factually wrong,” Mr. Ban said, emphasizing the skills and other resources they brought to host countries. “I call on leaders to counter fearmongering with reassurance, and to fight inaccurate information with the truth.”
Attempts to criticize the new arrivals are “not only demeaning, offensive and counterproductive, they are factually wrong,” Mr. Ban said, emphasizing the skills and human resources they bring to host countries. “I call on leaders to counter fearmongering with reassurance, and to fight inaccurate information with the truth.” The 480,000 Syrian refugees amount to about 10 percent of those registered in surrounding countries. Counting pledges to resettle 179,000 refugees the United Nations refugee agency has received since 2013, that meant it was looking for commitments to take an additional 300,000 people.
The United Nations refugee agency said it had received over the past two years pledges to resettle 179,000 people, so the target would require places for about 300,000 more. That target proved far beyond the scope of Monday’s meeting. Mr. Ban’s appeal elicited many pledges of support and solidarity but adding up the commitments made on Wednesday, Filippo Grandi, head of the refugee agency, said the meeting had raised the number of places pledged for Syrians by some six thousand, although other promises could open the way for tens of thousands more.
“We are here today to appeal for additional and more diverse legal avenues for admission of Syrian refugees into different countries,” Filippo Grandi, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, said at the meeting, using the occasion to highlight failings in the international response. United Nations officials had expected little else, stressing the Geneva meeting marked the start of a longer term process aimed at recalibrating the global response to a crisis that has generated the highest levels of displacement since World War II.
International donors meeting in London in February pledged $12 billion in humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees and the countries receiving them, but less than half the funds had been allocated so far, he said, calling for speedier disbursement. “Within all the gloom and doom of Syria it was a positive meeting; I come out of it with a lot of confidence,” Volker Turk, assistant high commissioner of the refugee agency, said. “It has generated a positive momentum for the year.”
Moreover, Mr. Grandi said, “much more is needed.” That is expected to become clear in a series of high level meetings later this year, starting with the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May; a summit on the refugee crisis at the General Assembly in New York in September; and a summit meeting that President Obama will convene the next day, which is intended to generate firm commitments on humanitarian financing and refugee resettlement.
European Union countries have not shown “the required solidarity” to share the resettlement of refugees, he said. “We cannot respond to a global refugee crisis by closing doors and building fences,” he added. Still, the studiously general comments ministers and officials delivered in Geneva on Wednesday underscored the gap between the humanitarian needs in what Mr. Ban called the greatest refugee crisis since 1945 and what governments were prepared to offer.
United Nations officials have cautiously refrained from setting any targets for resettlement pledges at the Geneva conference, a reflection of the political sensitivities surrounding the issue, and they have emphasized that the meeting is only the start of a process intended to recalibrate the international response to movements of refugees and migrants. International donors meeting in London in February had pledged $12 billion in humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees and the countries receiving them, but Mr. Grandi said less than half the funds had been allocated so far, calling for speedier disbursement.
Mr. Ban pointed out that the Geneva meeting would be followed by the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May, a meeting on the refugee crisis at the General Assembly in New York in September, and a summit meeting that President Obama is to convene in September on strengthening the global response to the refugee crisis. “Much more is needed,” Mr. Grandi told the meeting. European Union countries had not shown “the required solidarity” to share the resettlement of refugees, he said. “We cannot respond to a global refugee crisis by closing doors and building fences.”
The only durable solution to the Syrian refugee crisis, however, is a political solution to the conflict, Mr. Ban said. More than a million migrants reached European shores last year, and the European Union has struggled to come up with a coherent and effective response.
“There is no alternative to negotiating a political transition that will lead to a new Syria,” he said. Europe was “ready to take its fair share,” the European Union’s commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, told the conference, but he sketched opportunities for resettlement that appeared to fall well short of what the United Nations was seeking. Eleven European Union countries had agreed to accept 4,555 refugees under a program established in July, which would eventually bring in a total of 22,504 people, he said.
Mr. Avramopoulos also proposed that union member states accept 54,000 Syrians under another program agreed upon last September that provided for relocating a total of 160,000 refugees.
Six months later, that program has relocated just several hundred people, but Mr. Turk said the European Union statement would increase pressure on Europe to fulfill its commitments. “There is a high expectation this is now going to be delivered in real terms and it’s not just a fiction,” he said.
For the United States, Deputy Secretary of State Heather A. Higginbottom said the Obama administration had increased the number of interviewing officials at refugee processing centers in the region so that it could resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees by the end of September.
The Russian deputy foreign minister, Gennady Gatilov, calling on European countries to show more responsibility in dealing with the refugee crisis, said Moscow had doubled the number of places for Syrians to receive free university education — to 300.