Prague, Oct 7 (CTK) – There are 10.5 million Syrian migrants in the Middle East and North Africa, who pose the biggest risk of further migration, Czech PM Bohuslav Sobotka told journalists after a night meeting of the National Security Council (BRS) early Wednesday, citing the Czech intelligence services.
Apart from migration, the BRS meeting, a part of which was attended by President Milos Zeman, dealt with draft blueprints of building the Czech military and police.
Both blueprints have been approved and will be discussed by the cabinet now.
Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) said the highest number of Syrian refugees, six million, are “internal refugees” registered directly in Syria.
Another two million are in Turkey, over 600,000 in Jordan and further several hundreds of thousands in Lebanon, he said.
“They pose the biggest potential for a possible continuation of the migrant crisis,” Sobotka said.
He said the BRS members acquainted Zeman with the current measures concerning migration, such as the Czech aid to Hungary in the protection of its border.
Prague is now waiting for Budapest to further specify its needs. “We are ready to send there soldiers and police. We would like the Slovaks and the Poles to join the operation,” Sobotka said.
Defence Minister Martin Stropnicky (ANO) told journalists that the Hungarians are mainly interested in military equipment and they also need more than hundred police officers.
Sobotka said the BRS approved a material drafted by the Interior Ministry, which outlines concrete variants of Czech reactions if the migrant routes changed.
The document enables the government to immediately decide on taking extraordinary measures such as the reintroduction of border checks.
The police and the military are prepared for deployment within five hours. This could be needed if some of the neighbouring countries reimposed border checks and migrants started streaming to Germany via the Czech Republic, Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (CSSD) said.
The BRS also approved a blueprint of the development of the Czech police. The number of police is to increase to 44,142 from the current 40,000, and their budget is to be raised by 10 billion crowns in the years to come.
Another document approved by the BRS is the blueprint of building the Czech military, which outlines the development of the army until 2025.
