"Refugees" as a weapon of international blackmail

It seems Turkey is again wielding the "weapon" of unleashing Middle Eastern "refugees" against Europe if it doesn't get what it wants.

Turkey has threatened to re-open the floodgates of mass migration to Europe unless Turkish nationals are granted visa-free travel to the European Union. The EU agreed to visa liberalization in a March 2016 EU-Turkey migrant deal in which Ankara pledged to stem the flow of migrants to Europe.

European officials insist that while Turkey has reduced the flow of migrants, it has not yet met all of the requirements for visa liberalization. Moreover, EU foreign ministers on July 15 decided to halt high-level talks with Ankara as part of sanctions over Turkish oil and gas drilling off the coast of Cyprus.

. . .

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu accused European countries of leaving Turkey alone to deal with the migration issue. In comments published by the state news agency Anadolu Agency, he warned:

"We are facing the biggest wave of migration in history. If we open the floodgates, no European government will be able to survive for more than six months. We advise them not to try our patience."

The migration deal, which entered into force on June 1, 2016, was hastily negotiated by European leaders desperate to gain control over a crisis in which more than one million migrants poured into Europe in 2015.

Under the agreement, the EU pledged to pay Turkey €6 billion ($6.7 billion), grant visa-free travel to Europe for Turkey's 82 million citizens, and restart accession talks for Turkey to join the EU. In exchange, Turkey agreed to stop the flow of migrants to Europe as well as to take back all migrants and refugees who illegally reach Greece from Turkey.

Turkey currently hosts an estimated 3.5 million migrants and refugees — mainly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans. Many of these people presumably would migrate to Europe if given the opportunity to do so.

There's more at the link.

Yep.  Turkey basically has Western Europe over a barrel on this issue.  Just look at the chaos and political upheaval caused by a mere million or so "refugees" streaming into that area in 2015/16, during the first wave of this crisis.  If Turkey unleashes two to three times that many this time around, several Western European governments are very unlikely to survive.

What's more, the citizens of Western Europe are likely to take matters into their own hands.  Already there are enough of them who are frankly disgusted with their governments' spineless caving in to so-called "refugees" (many of whom are not so much refugees as economic migrants).  As Tamara memorably put it a few years ago:

Euros have a proven zero-to-jackboots time lower than just about anybody on the planet. Get Gunter or Pierre all backed into a corner and feeling existentially threatened and you'll be wishing you hadn't, faster than you can say "Arbeit Macht Frei".

The present Turkish government is pro-terrorist (just look at what it's doing in Syria and Libya for evidence of that, particularly the latter country in the light of its colonial heritage there).  It's pro-fundamentalist Islam, anti-democratic (again, look what the Turkish president is doing to his internal opponents), and thoroughly untrustworthy.  It'll use any leverage it can get to achieve what it wants;  and if that means deploying refugees as political weapons in Europe, irrespective of the human suffering that may cause to said refugees, it'll do it in a heartbeat.

Western Europe has no such determination or singleness of purpose.  It's filled with waffling politicians who'll angst in public about their "dilemma", but won't defend their borders or their people from being overrun.  If that reminds you of some US politicians . . . it should.  They're cut from the same cloth.




Peter