BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th February, 2020) Turkey is once again looking to exercise its control over the flow of refugees into Europe by threatening to open the floodgates to a new wave of migrants as tensions in northern Syria's Idlib province continue to escalate.
Earlier on Friday, Omer Celik, a spokesman for Turkey's ruling AKP party, said that Ankara was no longer able to contain the flow of refugees from Syria toward the country's borders with Greece and Bulgaria.
Media also reported, citing a senior Turkish official, that Turkey would open its land and sea borders for refugees to cross freely into the European Union. Hundreds if not thousands of refugees and illegal migrants are likely to make use of the situation to try to enter Europe.
By doing so, Turkey denounces its agreement with the EU, which suggested the closure of the Syrian-Turkish border in exchange for billions of Dollars in aid for the refugees staying in Turkey. However, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly accused the EU of not doing enough and is apparently now seeking to draw European and other Western powers into the standoff over Idlib.
The situation in Idlib escalated on Thursday after terrorists of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, banned in Russia) launched a large-scale attack on the positions of the Syrian government forces. The Syrian army opened return fire. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Turkish military, who should not have been there, also came under fire. As a result, 33 soldiers of the Turkish army were killed, and more than 30 were injured.
Erdogan convened a security meeting after the attack. The NATO Council is expected to hold consultations on the situation in Syria later in the day at Ankara's request.
As the Syrian forces regain ground in the Idlib pocket, the combat forces displacement of the civilian population towards Turkey's border.
UNMUTING EUROPEAN VOICES: EU-TURKEY MIGRANT DEAL OFF
For front line European member states, a new wave of refugees and illegal migrants from Turkey would mean a new crisis favoring an increased growth of the populist parties, as is the case in Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, Italy and most importantly, Germany.
"The Turkish government is starting to again blackmail the Europeans � and Berlin in particular � with the threat of simply waving flows of refugees it has caused itself to the West, via Greece, Bulgaria and the Balkan route. Ankara is once again using migration as a weapon to force Western governments to do what they want, in this case, to accept and support their campaign of conquest in neighboring Syria," Alice Weidel, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) group leader in the Bundestag, told Sputnik.
The politician from the German party added that it was a mistake from the very beginning to conclude the 6-billion-euro ($6.6 billion) EU-Turkey refugee deal in 2016, as Ankara started using it as a blackmail lever against Europe.
"The way out of this predicament is obvious: Germany has to close its borders, reject illegal migrants without exception and, as the main target country, take the lead in coordinating the rejection of illegal migrants and securing the EU's external borders in coordination with neighboring and transit countries," Weidel said.
Greece, which has become a hub of refugee and asylum seeker activity in recent years, stepped up efforts to protect its land and maritime border with Turkey in the wake of Ankara's statements that it would not contain the flow of refugees from Syria to Europe. Over a million people have arrived in Greece claiming asylum in the European Union since 2014.
"People have seen their properties destroyed, their sheep and goats being slaughtered by migrants, their homes being broken into. A few years back, when there were 5,000 migrants on the [Lesbos] island, things seemed bad enough. Now there's a sense that the situation has really gotten out of hand," Nikos Trakellis, a community leader in Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos, told Sputnik.
Meanwhile, some politicians in France believe that Turkey, although a NATO member, does not respect the values of either the alliance or Europe, which gives NATO the right to not support Ankara.
"Turkey invaded Syria in Kurdistan, without warning its allies within NATO and without warning the Syrian official government in Damascus. It led an offensive against the Kurds and seized Syrian territory. How can [NATO Secretary-General Jens] Stoltenberg say that NATO supports Erdogan whose troops fight next to the worst terrorists on the planet, leading a double game?" Thierry Mariani, a European Parliament member from France's National Rally party, told Sputnik.
The French politician added that the migrant deal with Turkey had failed dramatically.
A similar opinion was voiced by Roman Haider, an EU lawmaker from the Freedom Party of Austria, who told Sputnik that his country was demanding an immediate tightening of EU external border controls.
"Now the EU must act immediately. Any delay can be fatal. An uncontrolled flow of refugees to Europe is a massive threat to all citizens of the EU states. Unfortunately, it now shows that Angela Merkel's Turkey deal is worth nothing. Precisely because of the coronavirus, strict border control is the order of the day. Any postponement can be fatal. It is about the vital interests of every single European," Haider said.
Paolo Grimoldi, a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies from the Lega party, told Sputnik that Ankara was trying very hard to force NATO and the EU to support its operations in Idlib.
"I think Erdogan needs to appear a strong man to get votes inside Turkey. he is losing all elections. Of course, he is blackmailing asking money and political support," Grimoldi noted.
Syrian government forces launched an offensive in the Idlib province in December to recapture territory in the region still controlled by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorist organization (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, banned in Russia). Violence in the region has increased amid tit-for-tat strikes between government troops and Turkish units that maintain observation posts in northwest Syria.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Turkey has failed to honor its commitments in Idlib, agreed upon in a Russian-Turkish memorandum signed in 2018, and is not distinguishing between Syria's armed opposition, which is open for dialogue, and terrorist groups in the region. Ankara has insisted that it implemented its commitments, yet its Russian, European and some Western partners seem to disagree.
