The threat will have chilled Europe’s leaders to the bone. Turkey’s autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced that his country would no longer enforce the deal struck with the EU in 2016 to prevent millions of Syrian and other refugees who have poured into his country from leaving for Western shores.
‘The doors are now open. Now you [in Europe] will have to take your share of the burden,’ he declared.
So far only a few thousands migrants have amassed on the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. But Erdogan has promised millions are on their way, and Greek border guards are already saying they cannot cope.
There is now a real possibility that we could see a European migration crisis on a larger and more disastrous than that following German Chancellor Angela Merkel decision in 2015 to open her country’s borders to more than a million refugees.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pictured) announced that his country will no longer enforce the deal struck with the EU in 2016 to prevent millions of Syrian and other refugees who have poured into his country from leaving for Western shores
It was a decision that unleashed political chaos, helped fuel the rise of populist far-Right parties across Europe, and is considered by many to be behind Merkel’s protracted political downfall.
By detonating this latest immigration timebomb, Erdogan is cynically using his trump card to try to force Europe (with billions in financial aid) and Nato (with bombs and bullets) to back him in his rapidly escalating conflict with Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
The horrific war in Syria, with its use of poison gas and barrel bombs and its toll of hundreds of thousands of casualties, has put them at each other’s throats.
One reason is that their two countries share 500 miles of border, across which 3.6 million refugees have fled from Syria to Turkey following the start of the civil war in 2012.
Another is Erdogan’s support for rebel groups fighting Assad – as a Sunni Muslim, he is instinctively opposed to Assad’s Shiite-backed regime.
On top of this, Erdogan loathes the Kurds – who comprise up to 20 per cent of Turkey’s population and for decades have demanded their own state.
He has bombed Kurdish forces in northern Syria to ensure they never manage to establish a Kurdish nation on his border.
Now, the conflict between Turkey and Syria threatens to flare into a terrifying all-out war.
Until recently, Erdogan, who has treacherously cosied up to Russian president Vladimir Putin despite being a Nato member, had been held in check by Putin, who has never made any secret of his determination to keep his ally Assad in power.
In 2017, Russia and Turkey even signed an agreement to ‘de-escalate’ hostilities in four rebel areas opposed to Assad. One of these was the province of Idlib in north-western Syria.
Migrants move towards the border in Ipsala district of Turkey’s Edirne province on Monday
Migrants gather around a bonfire as they try to warm themselves in Edirne, Turkey, at the Turkish-Greek border on Monday
Over the past ten days, however, all pretence over this agreement has been abandoned as Russia allowed Syria to pulverise Idlib, which is now seen as the one remaining stronghold against the Assad regime. Turkish forces, which have established bases in the province, have been among the casualties.
On Thursday night, 34 were killed in an air strike. Turkey responded with drone and artillery attacks which killed scores of Assad fighters and destroyed two airfields. Yesterday two Syrian jets were shot down and three Turkish drones attacked.
As a Nato member, Turkey is within its rights to call for support from the organisation. And America is only too happy to see Erdogan fall out with Putin.
On the other hand the Western democracies don’t like Erdogan’s authoritarian ways at home or his treatment of Kurds. And no-one wants to be dragged into a war – proxy or otherwise – with a nuclear-armed Russia.
If Turkey and Russia end up in conflict, the rest of us in Nato will face a hard choice: join in or abandon an ally to Putin’s mercy.
With so many blood-soaked fingers in the Syrian pie, it is easy to despair about what to do.
A migrant throws a gas canister in response to Greek security forces’ intervention as they continue to wait at the Pazarkule Border Gate in Karaagac neighbourhood in Edirne, Turkey
A baby cries as migrants from Afghanistan arrive on a dinghy on a beach near the village of Skala Sikamias, after crossing part of the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Lesbos, Greece
But our frustration at the lack of decent options is nothing to the dilemmas facing the 3 million civilians in Idlib, huddling in makeshift refugee camps and bombed-out buildings.
The grand strategy of Russia versus the West is no concern to them – merely naked survival.
They are trapped between a Syrian army pushing them towards Turkey, and intransigent Turkish border guards refusing to let them in. Erdogan says his country can’t take any more refugees unless it lets the 3.6 million already there flee to Europe. And this, he claims, is why he is sending ‘millions’ our way.
Even if we in Nato don’t want to wage war in Syria, the consequences of that war are going to come to us.
In addition to all the problems of housing and feeding an unexpected wave of millions of refugees, there is the growing danger of the spread of coronavirus.
Stranded migrants are rescued by Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency team from an islet at Evros River in Edirne, Turkey as they try to reach Europe
If anyone lacks the means to ‘self-isolate’ or just keep their hands clean, it is refugees. These poor people have gone for years without basic public health and vaccination against known contagious diseases. Now they are threatened by the new virus, but so are citizens across Europe if they flood westwards.
Erdogan is blackmailing the West. He hides this by using humanitarian language but it is clear that Turkey is throwing its weight around.
Some might welcome the Turks confronting the Assad regime in Syria, but no-one can trust a president such as Erdogan who uses refugees like bargaining chips to squeeze financial aid out of us.
To put it crudely, we have a vested interest in stopping a mass exodus. Western European governments have to try to pressure all the warring groups to accept a real ceasefire.
Erdogan has said he will head to Moscow on Thursday ‘to discuss the developments in Syria’ with Putin. He says he hopes to ‘find a solution to this affair’.
Whatever our misgivings about the man, we must all pray that he succeeds – not just for our sake in the West, but in the interests of common humanity.
Mark Almond is director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford