Ankara is planning to build 200,000 homes in northern Syria for a quarter of all refugees to resettle voluntarily, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on Monday amid heated debates within the country on refugees.
"With financing from international aid groups, we've been working on a project to construct 200,000 homes at 13 different locations in Syria to relocate 1 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey, including schools and hospitals," Erdoğan told reporters in the capital Ankara after a Cabinet meeting.
No one should doubt that the number of Syrians in Turkey will fall to reasonable numbers as long as they are provided the necessary opportunities for voluntary returns, he added.
The president’s words come amid increasingly hostile sentiment toward refugees in the country, fuelled by some parties and figures. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) chairperson and other politicians had announced they would send back Syrian refugees if they win next year's presidential and parliamentary elections. However, the debate on migrants living in Turkey is mainly fuelled by the small far-right Victory Party.
The president reiterated that of the 1 million Iraqis that fled to Turkey when the Gulf war started, almost all returned following the war and said that Ankara, within this scope, is continuing efforts to stabilize northern Syria while building briquette houses.
Turkey has been a key transit point for irregular migrants aiming to cross to Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing war and persecution. Ankara has made it clear that it will not bear the burden of further migration crises experienced as a result of the decisions of third countries.
The country currently hosts some 4 million refugees from the 11-year Syrian civil war.
He added that while conflict is ongoing as well as terrorist organization attacks, and that the political and territorial integrity of Syria has not been ensured yet, Turkey will pursue efforts for stability.
“So far, 500,000 Syrians that came to our country, have returned to areas close to our border that were rendered safe. With the support of international aid organizations, we ensure that 4 million people, especially in Idlib, stay. Despite this, the continuation of tensions in Idlib and the insecure environment in other regions, has obstructed the decreasing of the number of Syrians in our country,” the president pointed out.
Erdoğan noted that Turkey suggested during the G-20 summit of 2015 to build cities for Syrian refugees in the country but that Western countries did not give the necessary support for the project.
He further criticized Western countries for not upholding their support to the Syrian opposition in the face of the ongoing oppression and violent acts against civilians of Bashar Assad in the country.
“If this support had been pursued, the country could have become safe and reached stability in a short period of time. However, after some time, Western countries have directed their support to terrorist organizations in the country instead of the Syrian people,” Erdoğan said, saying that trucks loaded with weapons, ammunition, vehicles and equipment were sent to terrorist groups.
“After this strategy change which bloodied up and set the Syrian land afire, the region has turned into a swamp where a wide array of project terrorist organizations run wild, also causing serious threats to Turkey,” he said, adding that Turkey’s counterterrorism operations were an answer to the situation.
The United States and France are among the main countries supporting the PKK terrorist organization’s Syrian wing, the YPG. Under the pretext of fighting Daesh, the U.S. has provided military training and given truckloads of military support to the YPG, despite its NATO ally Turkey’s security concerns.
Since launching several operations in northern Syria to fight terrorism, Turkey has been supporting every aspect of life in the region, from health to education, security to agriculture. In this respect, efforts to clear bombs and improvised explosive devices were launched and administration duties were given to local councils.
The country also rolled up its sleeves to reconstruct hospitals, schools, mosques and roads destroyed by the YPG/PKK. Within the scope of ameliorating the region's social infrastructure, people were given food and clothing by several NGOs while roads and buildings were rebuilt. These efforts paid off as hundreds of displaced Syrians started to return to the liberated areas.
“The works of our institutions show that more than 1 million refugees volunteer to return. Thereby, under the leadership of Turkey, we aim to finalize a significant phase in the solution of a tragedy to which the whole world has turned its back and closed its conscience,” the president added, indicating that further details on the process will be shared with the public in the upcoming period.
On refugees living in Turkey, Erdoğan said that all foreigners in Turkey are subject to certain rules on living and working regardless of their countries of origin, Erdoğan stated that those who do not comply with these rules are deported.
"The number of Syrians deported in this way has exceeded 20,000, and the number of other nationalities is over 21,000," he added.
The main goal of a significant percentage of irregular migrants coming to Turkey is actually to get to Europe, he noted.
Turkey would continue to host refugees and won't hand over Syrians to murderers, the president said recently.
Meanwhile, the number of Ukrainians who have sought shelter in Turkey amid the two-and-a-half-month-old war has neared 100,000, noted Erdoğan, pointing out that the problem of migration is not a problem unique to Turkey, but is currently experienced across the region with the ongoing war between Kyiv and Moscow.
“Although we are the state that is the most affected by this influx, we are one of the few countries that was able to manage the crisis without prejudice to humanitarian sensitivities. Those who try to create themselves a political position through hostility toward refugees need to see these facts first,” he urged.
“No one should have any doubt that the number of Syrians in our country will decrease to reasonable levels as long as the necessary opportunities for voluntary return are provided. The same approach is also valid for foreigners coming to our country from other places,” he added.
