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Norway's Foreign Minister Borge Brende: the ongoing refugee crisis is the worst since WWII
Norway's Foreign Minister Borge Brende said Thursday in Bucharest that the ongoing refugee crisis is the worst since WWII, and European countries should take all responsibilities.
"What we see now is the result of neglect on the part of the world community when its comes to finding a peaceful solution for Syria. Syria is now a humanitarian catastrophe; there are millions of refugees, millions of people who abandoned their homes. We can see that the situation in Libya is highly difficult. We have not found any viable peace agreement there, and now we are paying for that. I believe we now should conceive a short-term policy, then a medium-term and then a long-term policy. The things we are facing are this mass migration. It is the most serious refugee crisis since WWII and we all have to take responsibility. More than 300,000 people have come to the borders of the European Union in half a year, three times more than last year. We all have to intensify efforts instead of counting on the countries that receive them somewhere at the periphery," Brende told a joint news conference with Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu in response to a question about Norway's stance on the refugee crisis and the mass migration of people toward Europe.
He added that he concurs with the EU President Donald Tusk and Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel's remarks.
"We all have to do our duty. This is a humanitarian crisis and Norway is one of the largest donors to Syria, Iraq and other countries in the same area.(...) In the medium run, and hopefully in the short run as well, there will be a resolution of the United Nations Security Council and an agreement of the world's leaders; the world's biggest five [powers] should solve the issue," added Brende.
He said that as far as the situation in Ukraine is concerned, similar opinions have been voiced to a great extent. "As far as the situation in Ukraine is concerned, that is not Ukraine but Russia's problem. Russia has to stop destabilising Donbass; Russia has the key to unlock the situation and start obeying the international law. We believe it is extremely important for us to support Ukraine making progress. (...) That is why we increased our support to Ukraine seven times and we will continue to further increase it in the coming year," added the Norwegian foreign minister.
He also thanked for having been invited to address the Annual Meeting of the Romanian Diplomacy, congratulating Romania on its economic reforms that generated economic growth of 4 percent this year.
Brende attended the Annual Meeting of the Romanian Diplomacy as special guest.