Syrians at the forefront of Turkish elections once again… How?
As the second round of Turkey’s elections approaches, the issue of returning Syrian refugees is again dominating the electoral projects of both candidates, opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and outgoing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan stressed in his latest statement that his country is gradually seeking to repatriate Syrian refugees, saying in an interview with CNN on Sunday night that “we may repatriate more than one million Syrian refugees to their countries.
“Turkish NGOs are building housing units in northern parts of Syria so that refugees in Turkey can return,” he said, adding that the government was launching another initiative to encourage one million refugees to return home.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has already confirmed that his country will send more Syrian refugees to the safe zone, but has made clear that Turkey needs workers in the agricultural and industrial sectors.
Opposition candidate Kılıçdaroğlu, for his part, recently flirted with nationalist tendencies in the country, in order to appeal to voters of Sinan Oğan, the third candidate who lost the first round, after winning 2.79 million votes, is a hard-right nationalist, who above all wants to deport about 5 million refugees and migrants living in Turkey.
“Erdogan’s government did not protect the country’s borders and honor… It deliberately brought more than 10 million refugees into this country… Once I come to power, I will send all the refugees back to their country,” he said in a statement.
“According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), nearly 3.7 million Syrian refugees live in Turkey.” However, representatives of political parties, especially extreme right-wing parties, such as the Zafar Party, estimate their numbers to be between 3 and 5 million refugees, since a large number of them live illegally in the country and are not registered with the UNHCR. The majority of the refugees have a so-called temporary protection card (as king in Turkish) granted by the government at the request of the UNHCR and the EU.
Others have a so-called “tourism card” granted by the Turkish Immigration Department and must be renewed every 3 to 5 months, both of which only allow their owner to engage in a job after obtaining special permission from the government, and this permission is often difficult to obtain.
Turkey has received almost €10 billion in humanitarian aid, to help host those fleeing conflict in the Middle East and Africa.
