generalspeaking

Erdogan's War With Kurds, Europe, Syria, Russia

"If this safe zone can be declared, we can resettle confidently somewhere between 1 to 2 million refugees. Whether with the US or the coalition forces, Russia and Iran, we can walk shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand so refugees can resettle, saving them from tent camps and container camps."
"If we can extend the depth of this safe zone to a Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor line, we can increase the number of Syrians who will return from Turkey, Europe and other parts of the world."
September 2019
"What did we do yesterday? We opened the doors."
"We will not close those doors ... Why? Because the European Union should keep its promises."
"We are not in a situation to handle a new wave of refugees [from Syria]."
“We will not close these doors in the coming period and this will continue Why? The European Union needs to keep its promises. We are not obliged to look after and feed so many refugees. If you’re honest, if you’re sincere, then you need to share."
February 2020
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is consumed with bitter bile and hatred. Well, who doesn't he hate? Kurds, for demanding their heritage geography and threatening to take their ancestral land from Turkey, Egypt, for outlawing the Muslim Brotherhood, Israel for committing 'genocide' on the Palestinians, the EU for refusing him membership, Syria's Bashar al Assad and his Alawite regime for victimizing its Syrian Sunni majority, Germany for treating expatriate Turks like 'second-class' citizens, and Greece, because that country has been Turkey's traditional enemy, as much a nemesis as Kurds.

A dilemma faced him, a strident and proud Islamist whose Sunni credentials were offended when Shiite minority Syria's ruling mass murderer sent millions of Syrians fleeing across the border into Turkey. Syrians they may be, but Sunnis as well, gathering in huge tent camps as an economic, social and political burden on Turkey which claims to be harbouring three and a half million in those squalid camps. The solution, as Erdogan saw it, would be to rid the border between Turkey and Syria of Kurds in their traditional towns and farming communities.

And so a campaign to liberate the corridor from the presence of Kurds, creating a vast exodus fleeing for their lives to leave space for the immediate move of a million Syrian Sunni refugees out of Turkey and back into Syria to settle on land that was never theirs. The intervention of fate when Assad moved his regime troops into the area, alongside Russian air power to strip the region of Syrian Sunni rebel groups simply complicated an already complex and violent situation.

Enraging Erdogan who failed to convince Vladimir Putin of Turkey's vital mission, just as the U.S. failed to be convinced that it should abandon its collaboration with the Kurds it depended on to face off with Islamic State.

And now, Greece, whose islands have been inundated with thousands of refugees crossing from Turkey into Europe, destroying the peace and tranquility of the residents' way of life is once again struggling to maintain its sovereign right to accept those they agree may enter, even while, as a member of the European Union, it and Italy have been the major losers in a massive influx of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa.

They are an unstoppable mass of humanity. Overland and by sea.The agreement that Turkey coerced the EU into four  years earlier, to pay it billions of euros to aid in the upkeep of the Syrian refugee camps stemmed the tide of hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding into Europe for a while. Turkey now accuses the EU of failing in the extortion Erdogan imposed upon them, and they are now being punished accordingly. Deliberately opening the floodgates, making it known to refugees squatting in Turkey that the way has been opened, even busing them to the border, Erdogan is actively and maliciously punishing Europe.

The Greek army has been deployed to halt the influx, barbed wire barricades have been placed on the ground to cheers, boos and screams of the migrants. People get trapped between border posts on the Turkish side at the militarized land border, now the flashpoint for Turkey's war against Europe. An escape route for the steam of fury Erdogan has built against Russia and Syria, where Turkish troops are being targeted in Syria just as Syrian troops are in the crosshairs of militarized Turkish drones.

Erdogan is prepared to stand down should the EU suddenly become sensitive to Turkey's difficulties and support Turkey in its struggle against Syria. Meanwhile Turkish state television is live-streaming the exodus of Syrian and other haven seekers as they struggle to enter Europe. For the Syrian migrants it has been a joke to consider the Turkish facilitation. According to the International Organization for Migration of the UN, up to 10,000 refugees were treading through Turkey in hopes of reaching Europe.

Greece "came under an illegal mass and orchestrated attempt to raze our borders and stood up protecting not only our frontiers, but those of Europe, too", stated Stelios Petsas a Greek government spokesman. Of the 66 migrants who were arrested crossing the land border illegally, "none have anything to do with Idlib", he averred. "Our government is determined to do whatever it takes to protect our borders."