Syria: Turkey builds a residential complex for the return of refugees

Turkey has started construction of a new residential complex in northern Syria, near its border, with the aim of resettling Syrian refugees there, according to Turkish media

Syria: Turkey builds a residential complex for the return of refugees

Turkey has started construction of a new residential complex in northern Syria, near its border, with the aim of resettling Syrian refugees there, according to Turkish media.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu laid the first stone of this complex on Wednesday in Al-Ghandurah, in the border strip controlled by Ankara, an AFP correspondent noted.

"Syrian refugees living in Turkey will settle in these houses (...) as part of a dignified, voluntary and safe return," said the minister, quoted by the private Turkish news agency IHA.

"We are going to build 240,000 homes in the region," added the minister, expressing the hope that the construction will be completed within three years.

These statements come as the issue of a return of Syrian refugees is at the center of the presidential campaign in Turkey, where the second round is being played on Sunday.

Amid a large deployment of Turkish military and armor, the minister toured the project site, built on the site of a former airfield, according to the AFP correspondent.

A placard read in Arabic and Turkish "Safe and Dignified Voluntary Return Project", with the emblems of the Turkish Government Agency for Disaster and Emergency Management (Afad) and the Qatar Fund for Development , which participates in the financing of the project.

Turkey is home to more than three million Syrian refugees who fled the war in their country.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, under pressure from the electorate and the opposition, promises to do everything possible to facilitate their return.

On May 8, he announced that his country intended to build, with the help of international humanitarian organizations, 200,000 homes in 13 sites in northern Syria to allow the return of one million refugees from Syria. Turkey.

While Mr. Erdogan evokes a "voluntary return", his rival, the opposition candidate Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, promises the repatriation of Syrians "within two years".

Turkey has already returned more than half a million refugees to Syria, having built thousands of homes there in recent years.

Ankara had arisen from the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011 in support of the opposition and rebels wishing to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But the Turkish president is now trying to rebuild ties with his Syrian counterpart, who conditions any meeting with Mr. Erdogan on the withdrawal of Turkish troops deployed in northern Syria.

05/25/2023 17:09:16 -        Al Ghandurah (Syrie) (AFP) -          © 2023 AFP