Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country hosts more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees, said: “We will protect our brothers expelled from Syria because of the war until the end… We will never expel them from this land,” according to AFP.
He continued, in front of a group of entrepreneurs, “Our door is wide open and we will continue to receive the Syrians. We will not return them to the mouths of the killers.”
Erdogan’s statement is considered a denunciation of the statements of opposition leaders who regularly demand the return of Syrian refugees to their war-torn country.
Erdogan said, last week, that he is preparing for the “return of a million” Syrians to their country on a voluntary basis, by financing the creation of shelters and suitable structures to receive Syrians in northwest Syria, with international assistance.
It is worth noting that several Turkish opposition parties regularly call for the return of millions of Syrian refugees to Syria.
Last week, for example, the Republican People’s Party, the largest Turkish opposition party, asserted that if it came to power in the legislative and presidential elections in June 2023, all Syrians would leave Turkey “within two years.”
Erdogan had also said earlier that since 2016 and the start of Turkish military operations in Syria, nearly half a million Syrians have returned to the “safe areas” that Turkey established along its border with Syria.
The first grouped homes and infrastructure needed to receive returning Syrian refugees were inaugurated on 3 May in Kamouna camp in Sarmada district, a project funded by Turkey.
In front of a cheering crowd waving Turkish flags, Erdogan promised that his country would continue to help Syrians and that at least 100,000 homes would be ready by the end of the year in northwest Syria.
Turkey hosts about 5 million refugees on its soil, mostly Syrians and Afghans, under the terms of an agreement reached with the European Union in 2016.
Over the years, and especially in the past year, tensions have arisen between the refugees and the local population, which is facing a severe economic and financial crisis.
Although these incidents are limited, they have raised concerns among aid organizations that refugees may become a topic in the presidential and legislative elections campaign scheduled for June 2023.
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