Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made it very clear to EU and his – rather former – friend German Chancellor Angela Merkel: Turkey’s Parliament would block the EU migrant deal if no visa-free travel, the famous EU Turkey Deal that was supposed to stem the flow of refugees and migrants to Europe.
“If that [via-free for Turks] is not what will happen… no decision and no law in the framework of the readmission agreement will come out of the parliament of the Turkish Republic,” Erdogan said at the close of the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul.
Why did Erdogan threaten the EU? Because of this yesterday: Merkel adamant Turkey has to meet all conditions of visa-free travel deal with EU.
With one of the conditions being the need amendments in Turkish anti-terror law that brand-marks as “terrorists” all critics of Erdogan regime. Not to mention the recent legislation that almost automatically lift the parliament immunity of Kurdish lawmakers.
Erdogan dropped his mega bomb during the Eurogroup meeting on Greece – Therefore we hope our EU lenders have mercy with us ahead of the perspective to host all 54,000 refugees and migrants here and “write off” a good amount from Greek debt. 🙂
PS I do need need to mention that nobody is surprised by Erdogan’s threat.
