In a series of Twitter posts, Fahrettin Altun commented on irregular migrants\u2019 crossing into the EU, the treatment meted out to them by Greek border authorities and recent developments in northwestern Syria.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreece\u2019s treatment of refugees along its borders and in the Aegean Sea, as well as its refusal to honor temporary protection for Syrians, are a declaration of war on Europe\u2019s own values and principles. Next time we get lectured about those values, we will remind them of this!\u201d Altun said.<\/p>\n
He was critical of the EU as it stepped into action when migrants showed up at their borders, whereas it remained silent when millions in Idlib city of Syria were being bombarded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe EU\u2019s failure to work with Turkey in a serious way to meet the unprecedented migration crisis has led to this day,\u201d he said, adding the union has so far failed to keep its promises.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have failed to fully honor our 2015 agreement, leaving Turkey to deal with it & hoping we\u2019d prevent refugees headed to Europe. We will not do it anymore!” he said.<\/p>\n
Stressing that resolution of migrant crisis was based on collaboration with Ankara administration, he went on to say that denying entry would not bring any constructive solution to the migrant matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Turkey has accomplished to protect civilians in the past few weeks has not been accomplished by the international community in the past 9 years,” he said. “We have exposed the regime\u2019s cowardly actions against its own people and showed that they could have been stopped a long time ago.”<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cTurkey\u2019s operation in Idlib aims to stop the humanitarian crisis. It also aims to ensure Syria\u2019s territorial integrity. Turkey has no interest in acquiring any territory in Syria. We simply seek to prevent renewed refugee outflows and to establish stability and peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior Turkish official noted that the Turkish army struck multiple chemical weapon sites amid its military campaign in northern Syria, and the existence of such sites was \u201cthe proof that the international community has been deceived until now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLack of serious sanctions against the Assad regime allowed it to continue to operate chemical weapon sites. It hasn\u2019t shied away from using chemical weapons against civilians to empty out major urban areas. Relevant international bodies must inspect & shut down these sites,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Turkey announced a new offensive, Operation Spring Shield, in northwestern Syria to protect civilians from the regime attacks.<\/p>\n
It came after at least 34 Turkish soldiers were martyred and tens of others injured in an Assad regime airstrike in the de-escalation zone, just across Turkey\u2019s southern border, on Feb. 27.<\/p>\n
The Turkish soldiers are working to protect local civilians under a September 2018 deal with Russia under which acts of aggression are prohibited in the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Greece\u2019s suspension of temporary protection for migrants is the denial of international norms, values and foundational principles of the EU, Turkey\u2019s communications director said on Monday. In a series of Twitter posts, Fahrettin Altun commented on irregular migrants\u2019 crossing into the EU, the treatment meted out to them by Greek border authorities and recent developments …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":64993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,17,1,118,37,101,174,194,188],"tags":[858,78007],"class_list":["post-64992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-europe","category-general","category-hot","category-middle-east","category-politics","category-turkey-daily","category-turkey-general","category-turkey-politics","tag-greece","tag-migrants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}