Turkey

[Don Giovanni]

You know you're living in a dictatorship when you repeat the president's own words and throw them right back at him, only to land yourself in court:

Erdoğan files 1-million-Turkish Lira case against CHP MP for defamation

https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/er...amation-152725

[ThrylosG7]

[Don Giovanni]

The Turkish government is firing tear gas and organizing these attacks to help the migrants to cross the border:

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-...doff-1.8634633

"(The) attacks are coordinated by drones. Apart from intimidation, these attacks are taking place from the Turkish police to help migrants cross the fence border line," a Greek government official said.

On the legislative end, Greece passed a law to immediately return those who breached the border, regardless of asylum claims, back to their country of origin.

On Tuesday, the Greek government issued a legislative act that stipulates the suspension for one month of asylum applications from people that enter Greece illegally.

Accordingly, these people will not be registered and will be returned immediately to their country of origin. The act will have a retroactive effect and will include all those that entered the country since March 1.

“The suspension of the asylum process sends a very important message that our country does not consider those who enter illegally as refugees,” said Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis, who added these people are being exploited by Turkey in order to dispute Greece’s sovereign rights.

[Filikieteria1821]

Apparently, Turkey has deployed special forces to the border.

So we have greek troops on one side/turkish troops on the other, and migrants from countries not named Syria.

What could possibly go wrong.

[Don Giovanni]

https://hellenicleaders.p2a.co/l0ujj2o

Tell Secretary Pompeo: Stand with Greece!

Greece is facing an unprecedented crisis. Turkey is continuing to threaten Greece, and -- despite its promises to the EU -- has now driven refugees to Greece's border, which it knows is closed. Turkey is making an already tragic and volatile situation even worse, and it is imperative that the international community make clear that Turkey's dangerous actions are unacceptable.

The United States State Department has released a statement offering up basic support for Greece's right to enforce its border security, but the statement does not go far enough.

Please send a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo today calling on the State Department to issue a forceful rebuke of Turkey's destabilizing behavior.

[Filikieteria1821]

They also have a campaign where an automatically generated tweet can be sent to pompeo and the state department.

[ThrylosG7]

It seems the Turks are not satisfied with the slow progress of the illegals getting into Greece so they have attempted to speed up the situation by tying a rope to a military MPV and trying to pull the barrier down..they have also kindly provided bolt cutters to the illegals so they may help themselves. Finally it seems that sending Frontex to assist Greece was a bit of a Trojan horse - theres a report that a boat carrying illegals managed to make it to one of the islands it was Frontex were first on the scene on a boat also . The local Greek commander Ordered the Frontex people to escort the boat back out of Greek territory to which they refused/ignored and allowed them to reach shore. I dont know hat happened after that .

[Don Giovanni]

Turkey may seek to escalate tensions with Greece by attempting a rescue operation and site for refugees on the "contested" seas/islands of the Greek Aegean.

http://www.newpost.gr/ellada/5e60dae...a-kai-ton-evro

«Πρέπει να υπάρχει εσωτερικός έλεγχος ασφαλείας, ιδιαίτερα στον Έβρο και στο δυτικό δρομολόγιο για τον ανεφοδιασμό των συνόρων από Κομοτηνή, στα ελάχιστα χωριά που υπάρχουν μουσουλμάνοι. Αυτά είναι τεχνικά τακτικής, αλλά αν δεν απαντάμε και δεν διεθνοποιήσουμε το θέμα, δεν πιέσουμε το ΝΑΤΟ, το οποίο δια της Τουρκίας, διεξάγει πόλεμο πίεσης στη Ρωσία και μέχρι τώρα δεν υπήρξε η λέξη καταδίκη της Τουρκίας τότε δεν κάνουμε τίποτα. Ο πόλεμος αυτός της αποσταθεροποίησης, θα οδηγήσει, ίσως με κάποια προβοκάτσια, σε ελαφρά διένεξη στην περίπτωση έρευνας και διάσωσης σε μικρή βραχονησίδα στο Αιγαίο, όπου θα αμφισβητήσει την κυριότητα η Τουρκία, και από εκεί και πέρα αρχίζει η κλιμάκωση. Αυτό πρέπει προληφθεί. Χρειάζεται η χρήση των όπλων να είναι περιορισμένη και από τον στρατό προκειμένου να υπάρχει αποτροπή. Οι Τούρκοι κατευθύνουν και θα κάνουν, κατά πληροφορίες, τρία στρατόπεδα προσφύγων και εδώ δεν έχουμε καταγγείλει ούτε την Ύπατη Αρμοστεία των ΗΕ, ούτε την Ερυθρά Ημισέλινο» πρόσθεσε για να καταλήξει:

[Filikieteria1821]

A lot of it will depend on how things go during the meeting between Erdogan and the EU officials.

I think he's going to ask for a bump up of a few billion to stem migrants, and also may ask for more concrete support in Syria.

There is no doubt in my mind that the new agreement for Idlib is just a momentary pause to more blood shed and further attempts to annex idlib. Erdogan will not give up on his dreams of recreating the ottoman empire that easily. He is the kind of guy that has no limits and will burn the house down while he's in it.

Greece has done well so far to keep the situation in a somewhat stabilized position.

I think this is just the beginning of much more to come

[Brklyngrk]

His new tactic is just plain asking Greece to open the borders - Greece open the borders and let them through, they don't want to stay there anyway.

[Filikieteria1821]

Reports coming out that Erdogan left brussels without making any joint statements - which likely means that things didn't go well for him - waiting to see if further reports come out

[Don Giovanni]

Thanks 1821.

Turkey’s Erdogan Leaves EU Talks Without Agreement on Refugees

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...nt-on-refugees

[Don Giovanni]

Turkey's interior minister is a real piece of work:

Via Twitter:

https://twitter.com/abdbozkurt/statu...05722767532035

Abdullah Bozkurt
@abdbozkurt
Refugees who cross to Europe will soon top to a million, European governments will fall, their economies will be destabilized and their stock exchanges will tumble and they can't do anything about it, says #Turkey's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu.

He sounds very delusional. In fact, it sounds to me like he's really talking about Turkey because those are Turkey's problems. They have 3.5 million refugees/illegal migrants, their economy is stagnating and falling apart, they destabilized themselves through their pathetic war efforts and mass purges... that's 100% Turkey's predicament. The interior minister is describing his own country, which he has helped to ruin. Keep driving home dead soldiers scum. Here's to you and hoping you have a nephew get blown up by Haftar! Piece of shit.

[Brklyngrk]

Yea - he pretty much admits that this is being done with the intent of destabilizing Europe, not a good way to say you are a good neighbor. Say what you want about Mitsotakis, he has handled this as best as he could. Greece asked Bulgaria to open the waters from the Evros Dam to make passage through the river impossible (which they did).

[Filikieteria1821]

I'm sure Erdogan won't be too pleased with Borisov for doing that. After all they met just last week and up until now, migrants have been attempting to go through Greece and not Bulgaria.

Wonder if flooding Evros is going to make Erdogan re-direct some hordes of migrants towards Bulgaria.

It's clear that the EU/Erdogan don't see eye to eye and even his buddy Merkel has continuously bashed his actions.

Turkey is feeling the results of its foreign policy blunders and I think more is to come. Erdogan isn't going to withdraw his efforts