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VARNA, Bulgaria (Reuters) - The European Union holds an uneasy summit with Turkey on Monday, when it is likely to provide Ankara with fresh cash to extend a deal on Syrian refugees but deflect Turkish demands for deeper trade ties and visa-free travel to Europe.

With the bloc critical of what it considers to be Turkish President Tayyip Erdogans growing authoritarianism at home and his intervention in Syrias war, Brussels had hesitated to agree to the summit.

But host Bulgaria viewed the meeting at the Black Sea port of Varna as a rare chance for dialogue with the country that remains a candidate for EU membership despite years of stalled talks.

EU leaders also cited Turkeys importance as a NATO ally on Europes southern flank and in curbing immigration to Europe from the Middle East and Africa.

I am looking with mixed feelings towards the Varna summit because the differences in views between the EU and Turkey are many, said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who will represent the bloc along with European Council President Donald Tusk.

It will be a frank and open debate, where we will not hide our differences but will seek to improve our cooperation, Juncker told reporters on Friday after a two-day EU summit that discussed Turkey.

At that meeting in Brussels, leaders condemned what they said were Turkeys illegal actions in a standoff over eastern Mediterranean gas reserves with bloc members Greece and Cyprus.

But in a familiar pattern of public recrimination, Turkeys minister for EU affairs, Omer Celik, said Ankara viewed the summit as an important opportunity to move our relations forward and that he expected the same positive and constructive approach from the EU.

Erdogan will seek more money for Syrian refugees, a deeper customs union and progress in talks on letting Turks visit Europe without visas, a Turkish foreign ministry spokesman said.

EU money is likely to be forthcoming, but little else, EU officials and diplomats said.

The bloc is set to grant Turkey a second 3 billion euro ($3.7 billion) tranche to provide for the Syrians it hosts under a March 2016 deal to take in migrants fleeing the countrys war.

However, EU diplomats said that Erdogans invitation to Varna will come at the price of more sharp criticism from EU counterparts who say that Turkey has been backsliding on democracy and human rights since a failed coup in July 2016.

Some 50,000 people, including journalists, have been arrested while a further 150,000, including teachers, judges and soldiers, have been sacked or suspended from their jobs since the attempted coup.

The meeting in Varna is likely to be one of the last opportunities to maintain dialogue, said Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, whose nation holds the EUs rotating presidency.

Despite the need for Turkeys cooperation on security and foreign policy, the EU should maintain a tough line, said Marc Pierini, a former EU ambassador to Turkey, now at the Carnegie Europe think-tank.

Its quite tempting for EU politicians to go for a transactional relationship with Turkey, but Erdogan is not going to stop EU-bashing for his nationalist agenda, he Pierini.

Additional reporting by Robin Emmott; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel @AdeCar; Editing by David Goodman

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EU leaders host Turkish President Erdogan for uneasy ...

Behind everything thats harmful to this nation, the Turkish leader said, lies an order from the West.

Thats Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II, in an episode of the historical TV drama watched by millions of Turks every Friday. And if they come away drawing parallels with contemporary politics, the countrys current ruler probably wouldnt object.

Are you watching Payitaht? Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked supporters at a recent rally, as he winds up for an election campaign that could crown his career. He spelled out why they should be. Foreign powers are still seeking concessions from us, the president said. Never!

Erdogan attends a ceremony marking the centenary of the death of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II in Istanbul on Feb. 10.

Photographer: Emrah Yorulmaz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Abdulhamid, who was deposed in a 1909 coup, is enjoying an unlikely political moment in Turkey, where Erdogan is due to seek re-election to a newly empowered presidency in 2019, or earlier if elections are brought forward.

There are domestic and foreign reasons for the revival. Erdogan has sent his soldiers into former Ottoman lands in Syria, to fight Kurdish militants backed by the U.S., and on Sunday they took control of a key northwestern city. Hes also been quarreling over territory with European Union member Greece.

Add the failed coup of 2016, and the various conflicts are feeding into the narrative that Erdogan is besieged by enemies within and outside, like Abdulhamid, said Oner Bucukcu, a political analyst at Afyon Kocatepe University in central Turkey. The sultan was forced to cede imperial territory in eastern Europe amid a series of wars.

Of course, the countries that figure as enemies in this scenario are, on paper, Erdogans allies.

Turkey is a member of NATO and an applicant to join the EU. Lately its pursued an increasingly independent foreign policy, befriending Cold War enemy Russia and boosting trade with Iran. Still, like Abdulhamid, Erdogan is a very pragmatic leader, Bucukcu said. Hes unlikely to snap off ties.

Meanwhile, in some of the countries that formed part of Abdulhamids domain, Turkeys forays have been viewed with suspicion.

Angela Merkel and Recep Tayyip Erdogan meet at the Yildiz Palace in Istanbul on Oct. 18, 2015.

Photographer: Guido Bergmann/Bundesregierung via Getty Images

Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, talking to Egyptian newspaper editors earlier this month, accused Erdogan of trying to resurrect Ottoman claims to regional dominance -- and reportedly labeled Turkey as part of a triangle of evil. Syria is demanding that Erdogan withdraw his troops. Iraqi leaders have in the past clashed with him over a Turkish military presence there.

Admirers of Abdulhamid inside Erdogans government see a Western hand at work fomenting such splits, and the idea is striking a chord. A survey by Istanbuls Bilgi University found heightened fears that European states now want to divide and conquer Turkey.

The countrys enemies are trying to cut the bond between the Turkish Republic and the Arab world and the land of Islam, Culture Minister Numan Kurtulmus said in September. He said there are extraordinary similarities with the sultans times.

Some of Erdogans rivals have jumped on the connection too, and sought to turn it against the president, whos maintained Turkeys so-far futile bid for EU membership. If Sultan Abdulhamid was alive today, hed be working to create an Islamic Union and not to enter the EU, said Temel Karamollaoglu, leader of the small pro-Islamic Saadet Party.

Photographer: Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images

Abdulhamid was labeled the red sultan in Europe, blamed for mass killings of rebellious Armenians around the turn of the century. He also refused to open Palestinian lands to Jewish settlers. A European Parliament report faulted the TV series about the sultan for conveying an obvious anti-Semitic message.

His reign hasnt always been celebrated in modern Turkey either. The countrys founders repudiated him as an autocrat who ran an extensive spy network and muzzled his critics through press censorship.

But Erdogans political roots are in an Islamist movement, and hes been chipping away at Turkeys secular, republican traditions during his 15 years in power. That includes a new focus on the Ottoman era. His government has laid on a series of events this year to mark the 100th anniversary of Abdulhamids death. The president spoke at one of them, a conference held in the sultans hilltop palace at Yildiz in Istanbul, overlooking the Bosporus.

Too many Turks, misled by the West, have cut the country off from its Ottoman roots, Erdogan said. History isnt just a nations past, its the compass for its future.

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Sultan Who Raged at the West Becomes a Hero in Erdogans ...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is threatening to follow up the capture of the Kurdish enclave of Afrin by launching an across-the-board military offensive against the remaining Kurdish-held areas in northern Syria and the main Yazidi population centre in the Sinjar region of Iraqi Kurdistan.

He claimed that the next target of Turkish troops would be the cities of Manbij, which the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) captured from Isis in 2016, and Kobani, which withstood a famous siege by Isis that ended in 2015. Unlike Afrin, both places are protected by the US Air Force, backed by 2,000 US specialised ground troops.

Mr Erdogan undoubtedly intends in the long term to eliminate the de facto Kurdish state that developed in northern and eastern Syria as the result of the advance of the YPG, backed by US air power, in the war against Isis. But it is unlikely that he will seek a confrontation with the US, which is sending out patrols of armoured vehicles into the front lines around Manbij, a strategically placed city between Aleppo and the Euphrates.

Speaking soon after the Turkish invasion of Afrin on 20 January, GenJoseph Votel, commander of the US Central Command, said that withdrawing US forces from Manbij was not something we are looking into.

The Turkish leader threatened that his countrys troops could cross into Iraq to drive out Kurdish militants from Sinjar, if the Iraqi government did not oust them from there itself. The area is under the strong influence of the YPG, which intervened militarily in 2014 to protect the Yazidi community who were being massacred, raped and enslaved by Isis, which was then at the peak of its power.

The threat of a widening offensive against Syrian Kurdish forces is probably a manoeuvre by Mr Erdogan to divert attention from the situation in the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, which Turkish-backed forces captured on Sunday. There is a mass exodus of more than 200,000 people, according to a senior Kurdish official. The people with cars are sleeping in the cars, the people without are sleeping under the trees with their children, Hevi Mustafa, a top member of the Kurdish civil authority in the Afrin area, told a news agency.

The UN says that 98,000 recently displaced people from Afrin have registered with it at three centres outside the enclave. Another report saidthat 120,000 Kurds are not being allowed to enter Syrian government held territory and areunable to return to Afrin. The US State Department said it was deeply concerned by the humanitarian situation.

There may be less than meets the eye in a Turkish promise to leave Afrin once military operations are over. We are not permanent there [in Afrin]and we are certainly not invaders, said Bekir Bozdag, a deputy prime minister. Our goal is to hand the region back to its real owners after clearing it of terrorists. The reference to real ownersmay refer to a Turkish claim that many Arabs have been driven out of Afrin in the past and will now recover their homes, a form of enforced re-Arabisationthat would take advantage of the flight of much of the Kurdish population. A Turkish military withdrawal, even if it took place, would not mean much because Turkey and Turkish-controlled territory surrounds Afrin on three sides and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) units, which would presumably stay in Afrin, take their orders from Turkey.

Turkish-led forces are carrying out widespread looting of government offices, shops and homes in Afrin as well as stealing vehicles, such as farm machinery, tractors and trailers according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It says that the looting and arrests are fuelling growing resentment among displaced people. Pictures from the area show tractors being driven away by uniformed militiamen.

The Kurdish YPG, which did not make a final stand in Manbij, says that it will revert to guerrilla warfare, something in which its commanders have great experience. But this may not be easy to do in a place like Afrin, which is isolated from the main Kurdish-held territory east of the Euphrates river. Guerrilla attacks are likely to provoke retaliation against the remaining Kurdish civilian population who might then leave Afrin and further open the door to ethnic cleansing.

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Erdogan Threatens Wider War Against the Kurds

ANKARA/AFRIN, Syria (Reuters) - Turkish forces will press their offensive against Kurdish YPG fighters along the length of Turkeys border with Syria and if necessary into northern Iraq, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.

Turkish troops and their rebel allies swept into the northwest Syrian town of Afrin on Sunday, the culmination of an eight-week campaign to drive the Kurdish YPG fighters from the region. On Monday, a Turkish aid group started distributing relief supplies in the town center. But residents continued to leave after widespread reports of looting.

After seizing control of Afrin, the main town in a pocket of Kurdish-controlled territory in northwest Syria, Erdogan said Turkey would also target a region stretching nearly 400 km (250 miles) east to the northern Syrian town of Qamishli.

Expanding Turkeys military campaign into the much larger Kurdish-held territory further east would risk confronting troops of a NATO ally, the United States, that are deployed alongside a YPG-dominated force in northern Syria.

The YPG has been Washingtons main ally against Islamic State in Syria, in a partnership that has infuriated Turkey which sees the Kurdish force as an extension of a militant group waging a decades-long insurgency in its own southeast.

It launched the air and ground offensive two months ago against the YPG in Afrin, a campaign it dubbed Olive Branch.

By controlling Afrin city center yesterday, we have passed the most important step of the Olive Branch operation, Erdogan told a gathering of judges and prosecutors in Ankara.

After this, we will continue now to Manbij, Ayn al-Arab, Tel Abyad, Ras al-Ain and Qamishli until this corridor is fully removed, he said, referring to a string of towns along Syrias border region with Turkey.

Turkish authorities have described the stretch of northern Syria under Kurdish control as a terror corridor on the long southern border. YPG officials have said their focus is on guaranteeing legal and constitutional rights for Syrian Kurds.

In Afrin town, triumphant Syrian rebels stood on a fallen statue, firing shots in the air, while military vehicles patrolled streets still littered with debris from the offensive.

Shops were closed and some people left for nearby villages. One resident said the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army fighters had been looting shops and homes.

The Free Syrian Army came and entered into Afrin and supposedly we were going to be safe. But it turned out to be the opposite, said the man, who did not give his name.

Erdogans spokesman told CNN that Turkey was taking the reports of looting seriously and that some fighters had not apparently followed the orders of their commanders.

The Syrian government demanded the Turkish troops leave Afrin, calling their control of the town illegitimate.

A political affiliate of U.S.-backed, Kurdish-spearheaded militias accused Erdogan seeking to attack under false pretences swathes of northern Syria.

The United States called for those in the area to remain focused on defeating Islamic State, de-escalating conflict and protecting civilian lives. The U.S. State Department also called for international aid organizations to be given access to deliver humanitarian assistance in the area.

Turkey is concerned about the presence in northern Iraq of militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has waged the insurgency in Turkey since the 1980s.

The PKK has been based in Qandil mountain region near Iraqs border with Iran, but Erdogan said a second Qandil was being established in Sinjar, further west.

He said Turkey had told the Iraqi government to deal with the threat.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim was holding talks with the Iraqi government, Erdogan added. However, if this issue is prolonged much longer there will be an Olive Branch there too.

Earlier on Monday government spokesman Bekir Bozdag said Turkish forces would return Afrin to its real owners after driving the YPG out.

A Syrian Kurdish official told Reuters that more than 200,000 people who had fled the Afrin offensive were without shelter, food or water in nearby areas.

The people with cars are sleeping in the cars, the people without are sleeping under the trees with their children, said Hevi Mustafa, a senior member of the Afrin civil authority.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called for greater access to the civilian population of Afrin. It said the Turkish Red Crescent aid group lacked credibility among Syrian Kurds after Turkeys military operation.

Turkeys emergency aid agency AFAD sent a convoy into Afrin town center on Monday and distributed Turkish Red Crescent materials including food, water and hygiene products.

The Afrin campaign was Turkeys second cross-border operation into Syria during the seven-year-old civil war. The first, dubbed Euphrates Shield, targeted Islamic State and Kurdish fighters further east than Afrin.

After the completion of Euphrates Shield in early 2017, Turkey set up local systems of governance in the swathe of land captured, protected by Turkish forces. Bozdag said Turkey now aimed to form similar systems in Afrin region.

Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; David Alexander in Washington; Writing by Dominic Evans and David Dolan; Editing by Angus MacSwan

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Erdogan says Turkey may extend Afrin campaign along whole ...

ANKARA, Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday told the US to stop deceiving Turkey and start cooperating, after Washington said it was concerned by the Turkish-led offensive on the Syrian city of Afrin.

Erdogans typically abrasive comments came after the US State Department reacted to the capture by Turkish forces of Afrin from Kurdish militia by sounding the alarm over the fate of civilians and looting.

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If we are strategic partners, you must respect us and you must work with us, Erdogan told Turkeys NATO ally during a speech to ruling party lawmakers in parliament.

He said that the US had carried out such a deception against Turkey by arming the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) militia, which had controlled the Afrin region.

Syrian Kurds, in the northern town of Afrin, during the March 1, 2018 funeral of fighters from the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) militia and the Womens Protection Units (YPJ), killed in clashes in the Kurdish enclave in northern Syria on the border with Turkey. (AFP/Ahmad Shafie Bilal)

Turkish troops supporting Ankara-backed Syrian opposition fighters captured Afrin city during a lightning assault on Sunday, with the YPG largely withdrawing without a fight.

Turkey says the YPG is linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency inside Turkey and is proscribed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

But US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Monday said the US was deeply concerned after the assault triggered an exodus of Kurdish civilians from the city.

Nauert said Washington was also concerned over reports of looting inside the city of Afrin, which AFP reporters had witnessed.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert speaks during a briefing at the State Department in Washington, August 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Erdogan hit back at the spokeswomans comments: Where were you when we shared our concerns? When we said lets clean terrorists together here, where were you?

Turkey had previously suggested that it could clear the Islamic State extremist group from Syria with the US, but Washington chose to work with the YPG.

On the one hand, you will say to Turkey you are our strategic partner and then after you are going to cooperate with a terror organisation? The reality is clear, he said.

Relations between Turkey and the US have been strained over multiple issues including Washingtons move to supply the YPG with weaponry and the failure to extradite the Muslim preacher accused of ordering the July 2016 attempted overthrow of Erdogan.

You attempted to deceive us. It was such a deception, I tell you, you sent 5,000 trucks of weapons there. You sent 2,000 ammunitions cargo there, Erdogan said.

But the president said Turkey was seizing the ammunition little by little.

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gestures, as he attends a national youth foundation event in Ankara, Turkey, on February 1, 2018. (Yasin Bulbul/ Pool Photo via AP)

We asked for weapons with our money, you didnt give it to us. But you gave terrorists weapons and ammunition for free. How is this partnership? How is this solidarity? he thundered.

But Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier said meetings with the US had not stopped. They continue. In the coming days, the foreign ministry undersecretary (Umit Yalcin) will go to the US, Cavusoglu said, quoted by NTV broadcaster.

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Erdogan tells US to end 'deception' on Syria | The Times of ...