Erdogan lost the refugees card because of Coronavirus

Ali Ragab

Erdogan has tried to use the refugee card with the European Union, to obtain political and financial gains, but he lost this card because Corona virus.

Tens of thousands of refugees were stuck on the Turkish-Greek border, which prompted the Greek authorities to tighten the measures on the borders, and refused to receive new asylum applications for a month, in an attempt to repel any possible wave of asylum, stressing that these precautionary measures that they follow are aimed at preventing access Corona virus to its islands in the Aegean Sea, where thousands of refugees live in miserable conditions, and Greece has recorded, so far, 7 cases of the virus.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, on Wednesday 11 March 2020, that his country will leave the borders open to migrants trying to travel to Europe until the European Union meets the expectations of Ankara of the migrants’ agreement with the bloc in 2016.

In a speech to his Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputies, Erdogan added that Turkey would present its proposals to the European Union by the date of the EU summit scheduled for March 26.

In a related development, the Greek authorities have expressed in the past few days their fear of an outbreak of the Corona virus, which is emerging in the Greek islands which host thousands of migrants and asylum seekers. With the first case of HIV being discovered on Lesbos Island, fears grow that Corona could spread to overcrowded refugee camps on Greek islands.

Fears of the spread of the virus through refugees are not limited to Greece, where several European countries such as Germany, France and Italy are witnessing a state of emergency to face the spread of the Corona virus, as Germany and France have exceeded the number of infections in them by a thousand cases, while attention is turning to Italy, the epicenter of the European disease outbreak, which jumped It contains figures issued by official institutions to degrees of alarm, after recording 126 deaths within 24 hours.

The death of dozens and the infection of thousands with the Corona virus made the process of receiving new refugees almost impossible with the economic losses caused by the virus.

Political analyst Nidal Al-Sabaa said in a statement to the reference that when the Turkish Minister of Health announces the registration of the first infection with the Coruna virus, you must multiply the number by one hundred, because corona.