Granting visa-free access to 75 million Turkish citizens will expose Europe to higher risk of transnational terrorism, claims a new European Commission report.
The warning comes as the former head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, expressed grave concerns over the deal to allow Turkey free access to Europe.
Sir Richard Dearlove, who led Britain’s foreign intelligence agency between 1999 and 2004 said allowing visas to 75 million Turkish citizens in return for the nation’s assistance in curbing the migrant crisis which saw less than two million newcomers arrive was “perverse”.
The respected intelligence officer said ultimately opening borders to Turkey is “like storing gasoline next to the fire one is trying to extinguish”, reports the BBC. While Turkey officially polices their border with war-torn Syria, the frontier is in reality porous, allowing Islamist fighters to come and go.
Open borders with Turkey could mean a potentially quasi-open border with the Islamic State.
Despite his clear concern about terrorist incursions into Europe, Sir Richard also expressed anxiety about the political implications of the migrant crisis. If the European Union couldn’t slow the migrant crisis, he said, the continent would “find itself at the mercy of a populist uprising, which is already stirring”.
Breitbart London has already reported extensively on the new anti mass migration movements gaining influence throughout Europe, from France’s Front National, to the Presidential election favourite Norbert Hoffer in Austria, and to proudly nationalistic governments of Hungary and Poland.
His remarks echoed comments of the European Commission who warned, despite being at the heart of the movement to expedite Turkish membership of the Union that the move would lead to “increased mobility into the Schengen area of criminals and terrorists who are citizens of Turkey, or who are foreigners based in Turkey”.
The threat of European borders opening to Turkey wasn’t just from present Turkish citizens. The report also stated: “It can be expected that, as soon as Turkish citizens will obtain visa-free entry to the EU, foreign nationals will start trying to obtain Turkish passports in order to pretend to be Turkish citizens and enter the EU visa free, or use the identities of Turkish citizens, or to obtain by fraud the Turkish citizenship.
“This possibility may attract not only irregular migrants, but also criminals or terrorists”.
In addition to the terrorist problem, the Commission also warned the visa relaxation would be a boon to criminals, reports the Daily Telegraph. Opening Europe to Turkey would lead to incursions by the Turkish mafias and organised crime.
The report said: “An assessment of the security impact of visa liberalisation for Kosovo reveals that drug trafficking, the facilitation of irregular migration, corruption, money-laundering and fraud, trafficking in human beings, the illicit trafficking of small arms and light weapons and returning foreign terrorist fighters pose potential threats to the European Union’s internal security”.
As warnings about the potential ramifications of the Turkey deal gather around Europe, the certainty of it going ahead erodes, as Erdogan’s increasingly Islamist government refuses to accommodate EU demands for political reform.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been seen to hold Europe to ransom over his demands for EU visas for his citizens, threatening to pull the plug on a migrant movement programme which has seen illegals returned to Turkey from Greece.
Despite Turkey having received billions of Euros in aid from Europe for the repatriations, and their demands for visa relaxations, the programme has actually been significantly less successful than hoped. Breitbart London reported yesterday that in the period from the 20th of March 8,500 people landed on Greek Islands, but just 400 were sent back.
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