Budapest – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on a visit to EU memberHungary repeated his threat Thursday to “open the gates” for millions ofrefugees eager to flee to Europe unless more international support wasprovided.
Erdogan held talks with Hungarian nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban– a rare EU ally — in Budapest where several hundred people demonstratedover Ankara’s deadly military offensive in Syria, with placards calling theTurkish leader a “genocidal dictator”.
Ankara launched the military operation last month to push Syrian Kurdishforces back from its border and create a “safe zone” to take in some of the3.6 million Syrian refugees currently in Turkey.
Erdogan has called on EU countries to provide more financial support forhis plan to create the “safe zone”.
“Whether or not support comes, we will continue to host our guests, butonly up to a point,” Erdogan said at a news conference alongside Orban.
“If we see that this does not work, just like I said before, we will haveno option left but to open the gates. If we open the gates, it is obviouswhere they will go,” Erdogan added.
Orban, an anti-immigration figurehead for nationalists in Europe andbeyond, said Hungary stood ready to help Turkey however it could to createthe “safe zone”.
“Without Turkey, you cannot stop migration headed for Europe… As aconsequence of this, Hungary is a strategic partner of Turkey in securityand migration questions,” he said.
“We have to do everything to avoid masses of migrants arriving at Hungary’ssouthern border, and for that we need Turkey’s help.”
– ‘Berlin-Moscow-Istanbul triangle’ –
Erdogan’s visit comes just a week after Orban hosted Russian PresidentVladimir Putin, stoking concerns in the European Union that the self-styled”illiberal” Hungarian is cosying up to autocrats.
Speaking alongside Putin, also a regular visitor to the EU and NATO memberstate, Orban defended his foreign policy of “eastern opening”, sayingHungary was in a “Berlin-Moscow-Istanbul triangle”.
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Accusing his Western critics of turning a blind eye to their own countries’trade and political engagements with eastern countries, Orban hasrepeatedly defended Ankara.
Hungary delayed an EU resolution condemning Turkey’s action, with Orbaninsisting that the offensive was in “Hungary’s national interest” becauseit would help stop refugees coming to the EU.
At a meeting in Kazakhstan last month, Erdogan personally thanked Orban forhis “support” for Ankara’s Syrian operation.
Orban was also one of the few European leaders to attend Erdogan’s July2018 inauguration ceremony for his second term in office, while the Turkishleader visited Hungary in October last year.
“(Orban’s) Turkey policy fits in with his strategy toward the east, tryingto give political favours for economic ones,” Daniel Bartha, director ofthe think tank Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy, told AFP.
Orban said Thursday that Hungary would be able to get natural gas from theTurkStream pipeline — which will supply Russian gas to Turkey via theBlack Sea — by the end of 2021.
Hungary’s partly state-owned energy giant MOL also bought last week a stakein the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline that transports crude oil to theMediterranean through Turkey.
The Hungarian army also plans to buy Turkish armoured vehicles, accordingto media reports, while a Budapest-based Turkish business magnate is closeto both Orban’s family and to Erdogan.
“The Hungarian government appears to perceive Turkey as an emerging, keygeopolitical player, not only in Syria but also in southeastern Europe andthe broader Middle East,” said Daniel Hegedus, an analyst with the GermanMarshall Fund of the United States.
“It seems ready to accept significant conflicts within the EU to pleaseAnkara, and acts according to the interests of Turkey and Russia ratherthan the Western alliances Budapest belongs to,” Hegedus told AFP. -APP/AFP
