Fearing public panic over war, Turkey shut down social media services on Friday.
The Syrian and Russian campaign to take back much of Idlib province from Turkey-backed fundamentalist rebels has displaced some 900,000 civilians since last December. Turkey views the campaign as a violation of an agreement it made with Russia. But Russia says the agreement required Erdogan to curb the extremist militants in Idlib, who instead have attempted to expand their territory at the expense of the Syrian regime. Turkey's Erdogan has threatened a major Turkish invasion if the Syrian army does not withdraw to its positions of last summer by the end of February (i.e. today). If Erdogan follows through on this threat he could come up against the Russian Aerospace Forces, which are giving air support to Syrian government troops.
Because Turkey is furious that NATO and Europe are offering no help against Russia (even the Trump administration has waffled), Erdogan has ordered Turkish border troops to stand down and allow migrants to try to get to Europe.
The Greek and Bulgarian governments upped their border security in anticipation of attempts by migrants to sneak in. Some 300 would-be migrants gathered at the Greek border near the Turkish city of Edirne. Syrians are said to be organizing buses to get out there in hopes of sneaking into Europe before Erdogan changes his mind. Others will attempt to go by boat to nearby Greek islands.
Turkey had permitted hundreds of thousands of migrants to pass through Turkey to Europe in 2015 and 2016, but took an over $6 bn. bribe from the European Union to halt this traffic. Since then the crisis has subsided somewhat. The refugee crisis played a role in Britain's secession from the European Union and pushed the politics in Western Europe substantially to the Right, so that there are severe geopolitical dangers in what Erdogan is now doing.
Bonus Video:
Al Jazeera: "NATO urges Russia, Turkey to halt Idlib attacks"
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