BRUSSELS — Under pressure to help Europe control its worst refugee crisis since World War II, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey turned the tables on European leaders on Monday and said the best way to ease the problem was for the European Union to help contain the war in Syria.
Meeting with European Union leaders as part of a state visit to Belgium, Mr. Erdogan laid claim to the moral high ground in the migration crisis, saying his country had spent nearly $8 billion managing migrants from Syria and Iraq, or several times the amounts spent by other countries to help Turkey.
“We are open to all kinds of cooperation in this area,” Mr. Erdogan said after a meeting in Brussels with Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council.
But Mr. Erdogan suggested that the key to resolving the migration crisis was Europe’s doing more to address the Syrian conflict.
“We are the country under threat here,” he said, referring to the civil war in Syria. “And despite this background, we did not close our doors to the refugees and asylum seekers who fled to our country.”
Mr. Erdogan called for more European involvement on a day when Turkey’s prime minister lashed out at Russia after a fighter jet carrying out strikes in Syria entered its airspace over the weekend, and NATO issued a warning to the Kremlin.
“The root cause of the refugee crisis today is the war that has been taking place in Syria and the state-sponsored terrorism actions” carried out by President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Mr. Erdogan said. To address the Syrian crisis, Mr. Erdogan called for efforts to “train and equip,” for a “safe zone” and for a “no-fly zone.”
Mr. Tusk, who leads the arm of the European Union that represents leaders of the 28 member states, said at the news conference that he had discussed a “possible buffer zone in Syria” with Mr. Erdogan. But Mr. Tusk announced no breakthrough on a deal to curb the migration crisis.
“It is indisputable that Europe has to manage its border better, and we expect Turkey to do the same,” Mr. Tusk said.
Turkish leaders are accustomed to visiting Europe with hat in hand, seeking to make compromises in exchange for advancing Turkey’s long-held, and long-stalled, ambition to join the European Union. But this time Turkey is in a relative position of power, given that Turkish cooperation is essential for Europe to contain the widening crisis.
“Unlike previous visits of Turkish statesmen to Brussels, this is quite different,” said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat who runs an Istanbul-based research organization, the Center for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies.
GRAPHIC
The Scale of the Migrant Crisis, From 160 to Millions
The latest E.U. proposal addresses just a fraction of a human crisis numbering in the millions.
More than two million Syrians are already in Turkey, with limited working rights and educational opportunities — factors helping push them to view migration to Europe as a better alternative. Many Turks also view them as an economic and cultural threat.
While Turkey has been praised by the international community for welcoming so many refugees, while Europe and the United States did not, Turkey has also come under increasing criticism for looking the other way as refugees embark on perilous journeys to Europe.
Turkey already has about 300,000 Syrian refugees residing in its camps. The vast majority of the remaining Syrians live in cities around the country. But without prospects of finding meaningful work in Turkey or going back home to Syria, an increasing number are now trying to leave Turkey for Europe.
Any package of European measures for Turkey would be likely to include strengthening border controls between Turkey and the waters off Greece, which is a European Union member.
A deal would also most likely seek to improve living conditions for refugees inside Turkey and to encourage a crackdown on smugglers who provide means for passage to Europe like fake passports.
What Europe can offer in exchange for Turkey’s help is unclear. But accelerated cooperation on its membership in the bloc is unlikely to be part of a deal, as is any quick decision granting visa-free travel for Turks inside the European Union.
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Seeking a Fair Distribution of Migrants in Europe
German and European Union leaders have called for European countries to share the burden of absorbing the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have poured into the continent this summer.
That leaves the offer of more aid money by Europe that could be spent on improving camps in Turkey for displaced Syrians. The European Union already agreed last month to spend one billion euros, about $1.1 billion, on Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and other countries.
Despite Mr. Erdogan’s focus on the military dimension of the refugee crisis during the news conference, the talks between Mr. Tusk and Mr. Erdogan were not focused exclusively on areas that have long been priorities for the Turks, like the creation of a safe haven within Syria.
Both sides also agreed to the creation of a high-level working group to discuss the full range of issues linked to the migration crisis, including European priorities like border control and combating smuggling, according to a person briefed on the talks between Mr. Tusk and Mr. Erdogan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the conversation was meant to be private.
Mr. Erdogan was also scheduled to hold talks with Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, and to attend a dinner with Mr. Tusk, Mr. Juncker and Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament.
As Europe has struggled to contain the crisis, with some countries erecting walls or deploying security forces to interdict migrants, Mr. Erdogan has lashed out at the Europeans.
“What do they say to us?” Mr. Erdogan said on Sunday while speaking at a rally in Strasbourg, France, that was billed as an antiterrorism event, but was seen by many as an election rally to address the Turkish diaspora ahead of a snap parliamentary vote scheduled for Nov. 1. “‘Oh my, don’t open your doors, don’t let them reach us. They should stay with you.’ ”
A deal on migration is particularly important for the German government, which has been pushing an arrangement with Turkey as a solution.
There is a need for international action, “especially with Turkey,” to control the influx of refugees, Wolfgang Schäuble, the influential German finance minister, told the German public broadcaster ZDF on Sunday evening.
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