In response to criticism of his major assault in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria and Libya, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has consistently threatened to send millions of Syrian refugees into Europe. Communicating to his party, sultan Erdogan cautioned that if the EU called its missions in Syria and Libya "invasions" it would "open the doors" to trigger a new refugee crisis in Europe. With Russia reopening the Syrian front in the recent days, presumably to confuse Turkey and its Syrian forces in Libya, Ankara's attempt to flood Europe with another surge of millions of refugees is a serious and dangerous threat.
Now, not only from the Greek borders, as well as from Libya, as the National Accord Government based in Tripoli, which Turkey backed, is in complete charge of the western coast from the capital to the Tunisian borders. Hundreds of thousands of migrants await their departure through sea to the Italian coast. Such migrants are already imprisoned in the vicinity of Zawiya and Sabratha, from dangerous militias backed by Erdogan.
In addition, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem al-Mammoğlu of the main opposition Republican People's Party released an article this month stating that while Turkey has received more refugees than any other country in the world, the lack of an efficient and consistent national immigration policy has furthered the poverty cycle and impeded the integration of Syrians. Writing in the Turkish Policy Quarterly (TPQ), mammoğlu says that Turkey's 3.5 million Syrian refugees face considerable financial constraints and are largely unable to find decent-paying jobs, meaning they continue to live in shoddy and packed apartments.
