The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, during a meeting in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced the allocation of a billion euros to Turkey for Syrian refugees, Euronews reports.

According to her, the European Union has always supported Turkey in its work with refugees from Syria (the country has received 3.2 million people) and has allocated nearly 10 billion euros for these purposes over the past 12 years.

According to the media, speaking to journalists after the meeting, von der Leyen touched on two important topics ignored by Erdogan: it is the circumvention of EU sanctions against Russia, which Ankara is accused of, and the reunification of Cyprus. Turkey is the only country in the world that recognizes the northeastern part of the island, known as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

“We have a lot of work to do,” the European Commission chief summarized.