Erdogan: Turkey will have no other choice but to open its borders for refugees to go to Europe if its projects in the safe area of Syria aren’t supported

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened Saturday that Turkey would have no choice but to open its borders for refugees to go to Europe if its projects in Syria’s safe area are not supported.

This came during a speech delivered Saturday, at a consultative council meeting of the Turkish club “Fener Behce” on Saturday, in Istanbul, according to the official Anadolu news agency.

Erdogan pointed out that Turkey is working to establish a safe area in order to prevent attacks by the PKK and YPG and IS from Syria against it, noting in this regard: “We’ve achieved our goal to a large extent”.

“If the terrorists don’t withdraw from northern Syria at the end of the 150-hour deadline, we’ll take over and clear the area of ​​terrorists”, he warned.

On Tuesday, the city of Sochi hosted a Turkish-Russian summit, which ended with an agreement on the withdrawal of the YPG with its weapons from the Turkish border to a distance of 30 km within 150 hours.

He continued: “What we expect from the international community to respect our resolve with regard to the security of our borders, and support our projects on the return of Syrians in our country”.

“We’ll establish a safe area between (the cities of) Tal Abyad and Ras Al Ain, if necessary, with the establishment of infrastructure and superstructure, and housing for refugees to live in, we’ll show this to the world evidence”.

“If the terrorist organization continues the PKK and the YPG to launch attacks on us from inside or outside the line at a depth of 30 kilometers, we’ll chase him wherever he escapes, and we’ll do what is necessary”, he said.

He added: “It saddens us to sit large heads of state with the leaders of terrorists and talk to them at the same table.

We never sit at a table with the terrorists and refuse to mediate between us and them”.

It is noteworthy that Turkey launched the operation “spring of peace” in northeast Syria on the ninth of this month, justifying the fight against terrorism and the establishment of a safe area to accommodate Syrian refugees.