Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened Europe with a new migrant wave if the conflict in Syria continues to escalate, German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported. European nations, particularly the neighboring country of Greece, “will feel” the migrant surge, the Turkish leader warned on Sunday.
Germany’s Deutsche Welle reported Erdogan’s comments on Monday:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said his country could not handle a new wave of refugees as tens of thousands flee a fresh Russian offensive in the Syrian province of Idlib.”If the violence towards the people of Idlib does not stop, this number will increase even more,” Erdogan said during an award ceremony late Sunday. “In that case, Turkey will not carry such a migrant burden on its own.”Turkey currently hosts nearly 3.7 million registered Syrian refugees and has previously warned Europe that it could no longer bear the brunt of the conflict.The Humanitarian Relief Foundation, a Turkish aid group, on Monday reported that the number of people fleeing the violence and heading to Turkey had reached 120,000.”The negative impact of the pressure we will be subjected to will be something that all European nations, especially Greece, will also feel,” Erdogan said.
The remarks follow Erdogan’s recent threats of flooding Europe with illegal immigrants.
“We will open the doors and send 3.6 million migrants to you,” he said in October as he opened a cross-border military offensive against the Kurds in Syria.
Following the U.S. troop withdrawal from northern Syria two months ago, Turkey launched a military offensive against Kurdish strongholds in the region. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance made up of Kurds, Arabs, and Assyrian Christians, played a crucial role in pushing back Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
The Turkish invasion into northern Syria has reportedly led to the displacement of tens of thousands of people. Further movement of the population happened when Syria’s regime and Russia joined the Turkish incursion.
After the Turkish offensive, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer warned Europe of a “wave of refugees like in 2015 – or perhaps an even larger one.”
The current surge is in breach of the 2016 EU-Turkey migrant deal brokered by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Under the agreement, the EU pledged billions of euros in return for Erdogan’s promise to curb the flow of immigrants. As a concession leading up to the agreement, Merkel agreed to settle up to 200,000 migrants from Turkey each year into the EU. So far, Hungary, Poland, and other eastern European countries have frustrated Berlin’s plan to resettling illegal immigrates, mostly from Arab North Africa and the Middle East, against the wishes of the native populations.
The Merkel-Erdogan deal is now in tatters. Greece is bearing the brunt of the migrant surge coming from neighboring Turkey. The authorities are failing to keep up with the influx. In September, more than 10,000 migrants landed on Greek shores, the largest monthly figures since the deal was put in place. Idyllic islands of Greece are turning into squalid migrant camps. “The islands right now are suffering from strangulation due to overcrowding at the facilities,” the Greek government admitted in August.
Last week, the Greek government admitting that it “could not handle” the migrant influx much longer. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotaki told top EU officials that the crisis in Greece has now “reached [its] limit.”
While European politicians and media welcome the ‘diversity’ that open border immigration brings to them, Islamist tacticians like Erdogan see the mass migration of Muslims into Europe as a tool of demographic warfare against the West. Erdogan has repeatedly called upon Turkish immigrants in Europe to increase their birth rate and become the “future of Europe.”
“I am calling out to my citizens, my brothers and sisters in Europe,” he said at a 2017 rally. “Have not just three but five children.”
Meanwhile, the EU doggedly refuses to secure its borders and shores. EU officials choose to attack Hungary and other Eastern European states for building borders fences and instilling reasonable immigration controls. Merkel prefers entrusting European border security to Islamist autocrat Erdogan.
If the current surge is any indication, Europe is sleepwalking into another migrant crisis of its own making.
Erdogan to Europe: “we will … send 3.6 million migrants to you.”
[Cover image via YouTube]
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