Soylu: Government aims to repatriate 1 million Syrian refugees

Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu on Friday announced the government's new project, which aims to repatriate 1 million Syrian citizens currently residing in Turkey under temporary protection status.

Speaking on TGRT Haber, Soylu stated that construction of a total of 240,000 houses in Syria will commence next week.

He mentioned that the Qatar Foundation will undertake a portion of the construction, while other charitable foundations will handle the rest.

The protocol with Qatar was signed in April, but due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and earthquakes, the project was delayed. These houses will be entirely funded by the donations provided by charitable foundations.

Soylu claimed that the number of Syrian refugees has not increased since 2018.

However, according to the Directorate General of Migration Management under the Ministry, the number of Syrian refugees was 3,623,000 in 2018, which increased to 3,641,000 in 2020 and reached 3,737,000 in 2021.

According to opposition’s joint candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who adopted a harsher stance towards refugees after the first round of presidential elections, this figure has already reached 10 million and alleged that if President Erdogan continues to government collapses, another 10 million refugees would arrive.