UN chief meets Istanbul mayor on terrorism, refugee

ISTANBUL

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met Istanbul’s mayor Thursday to discuss terrorism and the fate of Syria’s refugees in the wake of an attack on the city and the EU-Turkey deal of refugees.

Ban met Kadir Topbas for a private meeting at Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport, the mayor’s office said in a statement.

“The main agenda of the conversation was the global terror threat and Syrian migrants,” it said, adding that the two men had agreed cooperation against terrorism and in providing better living conditions for refugees.

“Terror targets humanity,” Topbas, who heads an umbrella organization for city municipalities around the world, said in the statement.

“The attacks in Paris, Ankara, Istanbul and the latest in Brussels show that humanity is under threat. Turkey is expressing on all platforms in the strongest way that it is against all types of terror no matter what its name, target or purpose.”

The meeting also covered the arrangements for May’s humanitarian summit in Istanbul.

Last weekend's suicide bomb attack in Istanbul saw four killed in the city's main pedestrianized shopping street. Turkey and the EU recently signed a deal to readmit refugees from Greece in a bid to crack down on people-smuggling gangs in Turkey.