‘ Turkish Prez threatened to flood EU with migrants’

Brussels, Feb. 9: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened in November to flood Europe with migrants if European Union leaders did not offer him a better deal to help manage the West Asian refugee crisis, a Greek news website said on Monday.

Publishing what it said were minutes of a tense meeting in November, the euro2day. gr financial news website revealed deep mutual irritation and distrust in talks between Mr Erdogan and the EU’s two top officials, Jean- Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk.

The EU officials were trying to enlist Ankara’s help in stemming an influx of Syrian refugees and migrants into Europe. Over a million arrived in 2015, most crossing the narrow sea gap between Turkey and islands belonging to EU member Greece.

Mr Tusk’s European Council and Mr Juncker’s European Commission declined to confirm or deny the authenticity of the document, and Mr Erdogan’s office in Ankara had no immediate comment. An account of the meeting was produced on the website. It does not state when or where the meeting took place, but it’s likely to have been on November 16 in Antalya, Turkey.

“We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the refugees on buses... How will you deal with refugees if you don’t get a deal? Kill them?” Mr Erdogan was quoted as saying.