Seems like a fair threat to me. Turkey has been bearing the burden of accommodating the majority of Syrian refugees. If Europe blocks its efforts to stabilize a part of Syria so it can repatriate Syrians, it seems logical to tell Europe "if you won't support our solution, you should share the cost of accommodating the refugees".
I don't see your point. If I say a military invasion is not semantically equivalent to an "effort to stabilize," I leave open the possibility that some invasions do have a stabilizing effect, but that is never something evident but something that has to be argued for. I don't feel like digressing into drawing Venn Diagrams.
Fair enough, but I would argue that a military operation conducted by a neighbouring country dealing with the fallout of war (Turkey) is more justified and possibly stabilizing than any American or Russian incursion. Turkey has more of an incentive to "stabilize" its direct borders than America has in that region. What is America's interest in that region anyway?
Turkey has spent more than $30 billion on refugees and was already host to 2 million refugees in 2015 (i.e. before the deal) [1]. So, no, that deal hasn't brought any meaningful change.
I was aware. But the costs of accommodating refugees are more than just financial. The social cost is much bigger. I think it's fair that Turkey is looking for a longer-term solution for asylum seekers, not simply taking money and feeding them.
> If Europe blocks its efforts to stabilize a part of Syria
It's not trying to do that, though that's the pretext. As with Turkey’s previous interventions in Syria and Iraq (and its ongoing internal campaigns), it's trying suppress the Kurds. If it's trying to create a pacified area, it's to avoid having a safe space for Kurds, not to repatriate Syrian refugees (except perhaps to repatriate non-Kurdish Syrian refugees to displace the Kurds, which is certainly a plausible Turkish strategic aim.)
This is not the first operation that Turkey has been doing. I believe this should be 3rd or 4th one. In previous ones, there weren't a refugee strike through borders.
"Turkish guards at the border with Syria are indiscriminately shooting at and summarily returning asylum seekers attempting to cross into Turkey, Human Rights Watch said." https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-turke... This occurred during Operation Olive Branch.
From what I’ve read in mainstream US news sources, Europe, NATO, and the US have no faith in Turkey’s ability to execute its plan. And setting up a mini-state isn’t something you can really mess up without having catastrophic humanitarian consequences.
And quite frankly, I don’t see any reason why Turkey would succeed. Just look how much trouble the (presumably better resourced and more experienced) US has had in setting up stable governments in Iraq and Afghanistan which (in my admittedly nonexpert opinion) seem to be the best historical parallels for attempting to create stable societies out of a legal vacuum with little-to-no useful institutions and peoples with minimal experience/exposure to operating in such a society.
