MESOP SENSATIONAL MESSAGE – Syrians in Turkey could become citizens: Erdogan

3 July 2016 – MESOP – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stated on July 2 that millions of Syrians living in Turkey will have a chance to become Turkish citizens. Speaking in the southern Turkish province of Kilis, which borders Syria and hosts more than 120,000 Syrians, Erdogan said many of the Syrians now in Turkey want to become citizens of the Republic of Turkey, Anadolu news agency reported.

“There are steps our Interior Ministry is taking on the issue,” he said. “We will give the chance to [acquire] citizenship by helping out these brothers and sisters by monitoring through offices set up by the ministry,” Erdogan added.

Around 2.7 million Syrians who have fled the civil war in their country are being sheltered at camps and in major cities across Turkey.Referring to the Syrian crisis Erdogan said the Syrians had been “prevented from governing themselves.”“The organization called Daesh [Islamic State] is, in fact, a puppet put forward with this aim. The organization called the PYD [the Kurdish Democratic Union Party], and the YPG [the People’s Protection Unit] are subcontractors that were empowered for the same purpose,” he said.

Erdogan stressed that just as IS does not represent Muslims, “the PYD and YPG do not represent Kurds,” adding that they “are tools used for dirty designs in the region by those who hold their leashes.”  “Today we are defending the same principles that we defended six years ago. We are saying the same things,” Erdogan said on the country’s attitude toward Syrians.The conflict in Syria has now driven more than 4 million people – a sixth of the country’s population – to seek sanctuary in neighboring countries, making it the largest refugee crisis for a quarter of a century, according to the U.N. www.mesop.de