Erdogan ‘Opens The Gates’ And Begins Flooding EU With Migrants After Syrian Army Airstrike Kills 33 Turks

Information Liberation – by Chris Menahan

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan “opened the gates” and began flooding Europe with migrants on Friday after a Syrian government airstrike killed 33 Turkish soldiers in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province. 

From Al Jazeera, “33 Turkish soldiers killed in Syrian air raid in Idlib”:

At least 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in an air strike by Syrian government forces in northwestern Idlib province as Turkey vowed “to respond in kind” with attacks on “all” their positions.

The rapid escalation of the conflict on Friday also threatened another refugee crisis as media reports cited officials as saying they “opened the gates” for Syrian refugees to transit unimpeded to Europe.

Russia, meanwhile, said Ankara failed to inform it that Turkish troops were fighting alongside rebels in Idlib.

“Turkish soldiers who were in the battle formations of terrorist groups came under the fire of Syrian troops,” the defence ministry said in a statement.

The deaths were the largest number of fatalities suffered by Turkey in a single day since it first intervened in Syria in 2016. In response, Turkey warned it will attack “all known targets of the Syrian regime”.

From Reuters, “Turkey says will not stop Syrian refugees reaching Europe after troops killed”:

Turkey will no longer stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe, a senior Turkish official said, as Ankara responded on Friday to the killing of 33 Turkish soldiers in an air strike by Syrian government forces in Syria’s northwestern Idlib region.

President Tayyip Erdogan chaired an emergency meeting on the attack in Ankara overnight, while Defence Minister Hulusi Akar and Turkish force commanders directed operations in Syria at the Turkish border, state-owned Anadolu news agency said.

Turkey has sent thousands of troops and heavy military hardware into Syria and Erdogan has warned that Turkey would launch a full-scale offensive to repel Syrian forces unless they pulled back from Turkish observation posts in the region.

These videos were released:

In October 2019, Erdogan threatened to send 3.6 million “refugees” to Europe if they characterized his invasion of northeast Syria as an “invasion.”

Judging by what has been happening in Greece over the past week, these migrants might find they’d be better off staying in Turkey or returning to their home countries

Information Liberation

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