Turkey must stop using the threat of millions of migrants and asylum seekers entering the European Union to blackmail Brussels, Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th March, 2020) Turkey must stop using the threat of millions of migrants and asylum seekers entering the European Union to blackmail Brussels, Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told Sputnik.
The deputy foreign minister stated that Ankara itself had created the conditions that had led to migrants assembling on Turkey's border with Greece in recent weeks by failing to facilitate the return of Syrian refugees.
"Turkey and its agents in the northwest of Syria have prevented Syrians to come through the designated ways to come back to Syria," Mekdad stated.
Additionally, Turkey currently hosts millions of migrants and asylum seekers from other countries, not just Syria, the deputy foreign minister stated.
"Not all those who Turkey has used to send to the western countries are Syrians. The majority of them are Afghans and from other countries, so Turkey has to stop blackmailing Europe," Mekdad remarked.
The European Union signed a landmark 6-billion-euro ($6.6 billion) deal with Turkey in 2016 to help stem the tide of migrants to the EU, and Mekdad stated that Brussels must stand up to Ankara's efforts to apply political and economic pressure.
"But we believe that Europe also should be strong in its positions to convince the Turkish regime not to blackmail them," the deputy foreign minister said.
On March 6, French Minister of State for European Affairs Amelie de Montchalin said that Europe would refuse to play Turkey's "game of blackmail" over the migrant issue after the Turkish government stated that it could no longer control the flow of migrants due to the escalation of violence in Syria's Idlib province.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 2,396 of the 7,471 sea arrivals on the Greek islands since the start of the year are Afghan citizens, compared to 1,208 Syrian nationals.
