Turkey has wanted to become a member of the European Union for quite some time. However, the European Parliament took a vote and decided to freeze EU membership talks with Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey persecuted those of the opposition, pro Kurdish party within the country by dismissing 120,000 Turks from their jobs and putting 40,000 Turks in prison. Several EU analysts from the New York Times believe that this decision of the Turkish President “would push Turkey to harden its position on issues of human rights and the death penalty, while endangering cooperation of refugee flows to Europe." President Erdogan dismissed the European Parliament’s decision as worthless and has threatened to let thousands of refugees to travel to Europe if the EU pushes them.

Turkey currently has roughly 3 million Syrian refugees within its borders, and last year more than one million people fled to Europe through Turkey. The majority of these migrants travel to Europe by reaching the Greek islands. However, under an agreement established in March 2016, migrants arriving in Greece are now sent back to Turkey if they don’t apply for asylum or their claim is rejected. This is helping to control the migrant crisis from Syria because for every Syrian migrant returned to Turkey, the EU must take in another Syrian refugee who made a request to seek refuge in a European country. This action has caused the arrivals of migrants into Europe to go down and the number of those killed due to the dangerous sea crossing between Turkey and Greece to decrease as well.

President Erdogan plans to put the deal between the EU and Turkey as null and void. On Friday, November 25, he warned “Listen to me: these border gates will be opened if you go any further." The European Parliament hoped that freezing accession talks of membership would cause President Erdogan to call back his decision of persecuting the opposition party. The Turkish President Erdogan knows that Turkey is an essential part of Europe even though it is not an official part of the European Union. Turkey is the bridge between the Middle East and Europe and holds as a middleman between the two regions. Plus, many countries within Europe are a part of NATO and Turkey is a member of NATO as well. Even with differences between both Turkey and European Union member countries, they cannot take action to fight one another without causing an all out war. Hopefully, something changes and Turkey and the European Union can settle terms for the good of all.