"We'll Blow Your Mind": Turkey Threatens Europe With "15,000 Refugees Per Month"

by Tyler Durden

Mar 17, 2017 8:38 AM

Earlier this week, at the peak of the latest diplomatic scandal between Turkey and the Netherlands, Ankara's deputy prime minister Numan Kurtulmus announced not only a round of sanctions aimed at the Dutch but exclaimed that since "Europe has not kept its promises on the migrant deal, for us that agreement has ended" to which we commented that "one year after it collected $3 billion for the migrant deal, Turkey has just voided the agreement, and the next step would be that Turkey is about to flood Europe with refugees currently held inside Turkish borders. And since by some estimates Turkey currently harbors over 2 million potential migrants, Europe's refugee situation is about to get far worse, and as a corollary, support for anti-immigrant political organizations across the continent is about to take another step function higher."

Today, Turkey put a tangible quantity to the warning, and as Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News reports, Turkey's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu threatened to "blow the mind" of Europe by sending 15,000 refugees a month to EU territory, in an intensifying dispute with the bloc.The threat is also a confirmation that for Turkey, refugees are merely a form of "weaponized" leverage in the escalating war of words between the country and Europe.

As a reminder, one year ago, on March 18, 2016, Ankara and Brussels signed a landmark deal that has substantially lessened the flow of migrants from Turkey to Europe. But the accord is now hanging in the balance due to the diplomatic crisis over the blocking of Turkish ministers from holding rallies in Europe.

"If you want, we could open the way for 15,000 refugees that we don't send each month and blow the mind" of Europe, Soylu said in a speech late Thursday, quoted by the Anadolu news agency. Soylu, a hardliner considered close to Erdogan, accused The Hague and Berlin of involvement in June 2013 anti-Erdogan protests, October 2014 pro-Kurdish riots and the July 15, 2016 failed coup attempt.

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has already indicated that Turkey could rip up the deal and said Turkey was no longer readmitting migrants who crossed into Greece.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-17/well-blow-your-mind-turkey-threatens-europe-15000-refugees-month