9 May 2022
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced May 3 a plan by his government that would allow the “voluntary return” of 1 million Syrian refugees from Turkey to northern Syria.
Erdogan’s statements came in a video speech he made during an event attended by Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu in the town of Sarmada in Idlib’s northwestern province of Syria to hand over housing units built by the Turkish government and Turkish relief organizations to the displaced.
The Turkish president said in his speech, “About 500,000 Syrians have returned to the safe areas that Turkey has provided since launching its operations in Syria in 2016.” “We are preparing for a new project that will allow the voluntary return of 1 million of our Syrian brothers whom we host in our country,” he added.
A leader in the Syrian opposition told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “Turkey informed the Syrian opposition of this project, but it has yet to provide us with more details. We fear that this plan might be ill-considered and lead to counterproductive results in the northern Syria areas that are overcrowded after huge numbers of displaced people flocked from all regions of Syria. The question that arises in this context is what would happen if Turkey brought in a million refugees? This will definitely exacerbate the problem, as it may lead to Turkey’s withdrawal from the Syrian file. It could also lead it to be less enthusiastic as far as changing the Syrian regime is concerned.”
Mohammed al-Sukari, a Syrian researcher who has Turkish citizenship and resides in Turkey, told Al-Monitor, “It is clear that there is a Turkish tendency to have many Syrians return to the areas under the control of the Syrian opposition, at least as part of political propaganda before the Turkish public that has grown resentful of the presence of the Syrian opposition.”
