(Bloomberg) President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to send millions of Syrian refugees settled in Turkey to Europe, as he bridled at criticism of his military offensive against Kurdish fighters.
“If you try to define our operation as an invasion, then our job becomes easy,” Erdogan said on Thursday at a gathering of his ruling party in Ankara. “We open the gates and send the 3.6 million refugees to you.”
The president has stepped up attacks in recent months on a deal he struck with the European Union, which included Turkey receiving 6 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in aid and other as yet undelivered enticements in return for preventing the movement of migrants. But the stinging condemnation of Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria this week has provoked Erdogan’s harshest reaction in years.
