EU leaders pledge aid for Syria refugees at 'excellent' meeting

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders pledged 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to help U.N. agencies support Syrian refugees who remain in the Middle East at a crisis summit on migration, the meeting's chairman Donald Tusk said early on Thursday. Other officials said a number of other pledges were made and Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU's chief executive, told reporters that the summit was conducted in an "excellent" atmosphere that was less tense than some had forecast. Tusk and Juncker said they would host a meeting with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Oct. 5 as part of efforts to cooperate with Ankara to limit the numbers of migrants reaching Greece. The leaders also agreed to tighten controls using EU-backed border personnel on the bloc's external frontiers. (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Ken Wills)