Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's opinion, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Reuters reported on Friday that an unnamed Turkish official had informed the global media outlet that his government will no longer prevent any refugees from transiting through its territory en route to Europe. According to the source, who requested anonymity, "We have decided, effectively immediately, not to stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe by land or sea. All refugees, including Syrians, are now welcome to cross into the European Union."

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Turkey hosts the world's largest refugee population at approximately four million, with over 3.5 million of them being from Syria. Should the Turkish state unilaterally refrain from implementing its 2016 refugee deal with the EU, and the Turkish government has not contested Reuters' report at the time of this article's publication, then it could have disastrous consequences for the bloc.

This naturally begs the question of why Ankara would do such a thing, let alone at this specific time, and the answer rests in Syria's Idlib where a fierce battle is currently raging between Turkish-backed rebels and the Russian-backed Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the latter of which regards many of the former as being terrorists. The governor of Turkey's Hatay Province announced on Thursday night that an SAA airstrike killed 33 Turkish servicemen, which prompted the country's vice president to declare that Damascus will "pay a heavy price."

Russian international media outlet TASS reported that the Russian Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying that "Turkish military who were in the terrorist units' battle formations came under Syrian troops' fire near the inhabited community of Behun on February 27." It also stressed that "according to the information provided by Ankara, there were no Turkish troops in the Behun area" after the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria requested information on the presence of Turkish military forces ahead of time.

As the security situation rapidly deteriorates in northwest Syria and hundreds of thousands of refugees reportedly flee the area of operations there, Turkey might be wagering that allowing these individuals and the over four million others on its territory to transit through the country en route to Europe could put immense pressure on the EU to diplomatically intervene by facilitating a ceasefire between the Turkish-backed rebels and the Russian-backed SAA in order to avoid a repeat of the infamous 2015 migrant crisis.

The EU is nowadays much weaker than it was half a decade ago, the last time that a massive influx of refugees entered the bloc. Britain is no longer part of the union, its de-facto German leader is mired in political uncertainty after Chancellor Merkel's protege recently announced that she won't run for the country's highest office next year, and the COVID-19 outbreak has raised speculation that some infected people from the Mideast might enter the continent as part of this possibly impending refugee wave.

Therefore, the EU definitely has an interest in averting the migrant crisis that Turkey might be passively facilitating in the event that Reuters' report about its new policy of allowing all refugees to transit through its territory unimpeded en route to Europe is true. Since Ankara appears to have promulgated this policy in response to the latest developments in northwest Syria, it's strongly implied that Turkey's envisaged solution lays with the bloc diplomatically intervening there by getting the SAA to agree to a ceasefire.

Seeing as the SAA is backed by Russia, which supports Syria's strikes against what both of them regard as terrorists, Turkey might very well be expecting the EU and its American ally to coordinate new sanctions against Moscow if it isn't able to successfully get Damascus to back down under pressure. In other words, Turkey's reported refugee decision could further multilateralize the Battle of Idlib by drawing in more stakeholders who have an interest in the outcome of that conflict, which makes everything all the more unpredictable.

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