Turkey halts flights for some Mideast citizens to EU’s door

By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA and VANESSA GERA

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Turkey has halted airline ticket sales to Iraqi, Syrian and Yemeni citizens wanting to travel to Belarus, which in recent months has became a key step for migrants and refugees trying to illegally enter the European Union. Friday’s move, announced by Turkey’s Civil Aviation Authority, follows EU pressure on airlines to stop bringing people from the Middle East to Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Starting from there, thousands of asylum-seekers have managed to cross into EU members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia since the summer, but thousands are also being stopped in the woods on the border. The situation is threatening to become a humanitarian crisis as winter approaches. It is also creating another point of tension between the West and Belarus.