Sometimes, distance is good for perspective. For Angela Merkel, that perspective came in New York.
The week before last, the German chancellor flew to the Big Apple to address the United Nations summit on sustainability, women's rights and climate change. But what she took home with her was the surprising realization that Horst Seehofer actually has a lot in common with Ahmet Davutoglu and Nawaz Sharif.
Seehofer is the governor of Bavaria and the head of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU); Davutoglu is the prime minister of Turkey; Sharif the prime minister of Pakistan. All three have recently conveyed the same message: Merkel must get tougher in the refugee crisis.
Davutoglu asked Merkel in New York for her support for a buffer zone along the Syrian-Turkish border, where anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 refugees from the civil-war torn country are to be accommodated. Sharif, for his part, engaged the chancellor about the escalating situation in his country and in neighboring Afghanistan. He demanded that the chancellor send Pakistani refugees back home. Read on and comment » | SPIEGEL Staff | Tuesday, October 6, 2015
