President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s advisor Burhan Kuzu commented on the migrant deal between the EU and turkey, saying on his twitter account on Wednesday that the EU finally bowed to Turkey’s threat to open its borders to refugees by deciding to provide Turkey with financial support for the migrant crisis.

“The EU finally got Turkey’s message and opened its purse strings. What did we say? ‘We’ll open our borders and unleash all the Syrian refugees on you,’” Kuzu stated in his controversial tweet.

Kuzu’s tweet drew strong criticism, with a number of social media users saying that it is unethical to talk about “unleashing [the refugees] on” the EU as if they were animals.

A social media user reacted against Kuzu’s statement, saying, “Are those whom you are talking about [unleashing] dogs, Mr. Kuzu?”

Referring to the many incidents of migrant boats sinking in their attempt to cross the seas between Greece and Turkey, another Twitter user asked, “Is this the reason why all those people drowned in Aegean Sea?”

More than 400 migrants, including many children, have drowned in the Aegean since the start of 2015.

On Nov. 24 the EU’s executive branch confirmed it will set up a fund of 3 billion euros for two years to help improve the living conditions of migrants in Turkey and prevent further influxes into Europe. The agreement was finalized on Nov. 29 at the EU-Turkey summit held in Brussels, where Turkey promised to help stem the flow of migrants to Europe in return for financial support, visa-free travel to Europe’s Schengen zone and renewed EU accession talks.