Erdogan moves from threatening to begging on refugee issue

Mustafa Kamel

Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has stopped threatening Europe, in general, and Greece, in particular. Instead, he begs support from the continent. This was manifest during a meeting on the illegal migrants now stranded at the Turkish-Greek border in Brussels on March 9.

Blackmail

Nevertheless, Erdogan accused Europe of failing to honor a 2016 agreement on the refugees, in the light of which the EU gave him billions of Euros in support. In leveling this accusation, the Turkish president is seen in a new bid to blackmail the EU in order to extort additional amounts of money from it and achieve additional political gains.

He also called on Greece to open its border for the refugees.

Erdogan is using the refugees as a pressure card in order to get what he wants from Europe.

Report

The British newspaper, Times, ran a report recently about attempts by the Turkish president to extort more money from Europe.

It said Erdogan would most likely demand money from the EU in the coming period, apart from the 6 billion Euros he took already in 2016.

European leaders, the newspaper said, are under intense pressure to protect an agreement that keeps up to 4 million refugees inside Europe. Nonetheless, the same leaders do not want to succumb to the blackmail of the Turkish president, it said.

It noted that Erdogan could demand lighter visa and trade restrictions during his next meeting with Head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The newspaper added that Erdogan had threatened to open his country’s border and let hundreds of thousands of refugees through Europe if the EU does not meet his demands.

Coalition

The German government said on March 9 that it is conducting negotiations with the aim of finding a human solution to the problem of the refugees stranded along the Greek border.

It referred to the potential formation of a coalition of volunteering states that can let young refugees in.

The German government added that it would allow a number of these young refugees in, within the aforementioned coalition, whose members it did not mention by name.