Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has warned Europe that without Ankara's help it could be "flooded" by waves of migrants and cutting off talks with the bloc would be far more damaging to Europe than Turkey.
"We are one of the factors protecting Europe. If refugees go through, they will flood into Europe and take it over, and Turkey prevents this," Yildirim said in comments broadcast live on television.
"I accept that cutting off ties with Europe would harm Turkey, but it would damage Europe 5-to-6 times more."
It comes as European Union lawmakers called for a temporary halt to EU membership talks with Turkey because of Ankara's "disproportionate" reaction to July's failed coup, although EU governments are unlikely to take heed.
Members of the European Parliament voted 479 to 37 in favour of a non-binding motion urging the European Commission and national governments to institute what lawmakers acknowledge would be a largely symbolic freeze in negotiations that have been going on for 11 years but have long been stalled.
Apart from likely floods of migrants from the Middle East and further afield in Asia, Europe is currently battling with floods of economic migrants from Africa. A number of these are from sub Saharan countries as well as from more northerly places like Eritrea, Libya, Somalia etc etc.
Most have little or no education and do not know how to behave in a modern society. And they are not fluent in the language or the technology of the specific countries for which they aim - the ones with lavish welfare benefits. From pix, it is easy to see that the majority of these "migrants" are young men.
Among the hordes it is known that there are many jihadists returning from Syria. Europe is definitely doomed, imo.
