DAMASCUS —
Syrian authorities on Friday rejected plans by
Turkey to return one million Syrian refugees to a “safe zone” on the border,
state media reported.
اضافة اعلان
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in early May said
Ankara was aiming to encourage one million Syrian refugees to return to their
country by building them housing and local infrastructure there. Turkey is
today home to more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees, who fled after a civil war
broke out in 2011 in Turkey’s southern neighbor.
Erdogan’s “cheap statements” reveal his regime’s
“aggressive games against Syria and the unity of its land and people,” the
Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on the official news
agency SANA.
Erdogan is facing
rising public anger over the refugees’ presence and is wary of the issue
dominating elections next year. He said around 500,000 Syrians have returned to
“safe zones” on the Turkey-Syria border since 2016. These are controlled by
Ankara-backed groups. The areas are designed to keep Syrians displaced by war
from crossing into Turkish territory, and to allow it to send back others who
already did.
“The main objective is colonialism... The so-called safe
zone is in fact ethnic cleansing,” the ministry said.
Ankara has periodically
carried out military strikes on a Kurdish-administered zone in northeastern
Syria, where groups it considers terrorists are based.
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