Following Monday's news that that EU, via Angela Merkel, had suspended plans to extend visa-free travel with Turkey, a public slap in the face of Turkey's president Recep Erdogan who had expected the deal to be ratified due to his threat of "unleashing" millions of refugees back into Europe, we said that "the question is whether the infuriated Turkish leader will resort to making good on his threat, and once again send out countless refugees along the Balkan route whose end destination is well-known: the wealthy countries of Central Europe."
Overnight we got a partial answer when Erdogan said that Turkey would not take any steps regarding the implementation of migrant readmission until progress was made on visa liberalization. He also said funds that the EU had promised to pay Ankara for taking back refugees had not been paid. In other words, the deal that had halted the influx of refugees into not only Germany but all of Europe is suddenly in limbo as Turkey will no longer accept European refugees as per the deal agreed upon last month.
No comments:
Post a Comment