INTERIOR MINISTER: “We’ll Continue Transferring Refugees”

Croatia’s Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic

(Hina) – Zagreb – Croatia will continue transferring refugees arriving on its territory, and so far of the 36,000 people who have entered the country since last Wednesday 27,000 have left, Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said in Brussels on Tuesday…

Ostojic was in Brussels to attend an extraordinary meeting of EU interior ministers on the refugee crisis. He left the meeting shortly after it started, citing obligations on the ground.

When asked by the press if there was a specific number of refugees after which stricter border controls would be imposed, Ostojic said: “As long as imports are such that enable us to export at the present rate, there’s no problem. But if exports fail, we will then think where to export next.”
Ostojic dismissed criticisms of measures being taken by Croatia. “Right now no one is observing the rules and we don’t need lectures from those whose territory has been crossed by 300,000 or 500,000 people. They shouldn’t be lecturing Croatia which is taking in people coming from the Schengen area where they should have been registered in the first place.”

The minister said that Croatia accepted the quota proposed by the European Commission, but stressed that Croatia did not want to become a collection centre from where refugees would be distributed across member states. He said that the relocation was already under way as 35,000 people had been relocated from Greece in recent days.

He said that a solution to the massive influx of refugees should be sought in Greece and Turkey. “There’s least discussion about what should have been done long ago. We were saying two years ago that the problem must be dealt with between Greece and Turkey. No one can convince me that it cannot be stopped there, with financial aid to Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and other countries that are taking in Syrian refugees,” Ostojic said.