Turkey to settle one million Syrian refugees in NE Syria
Rahshan Saglam
Press TV, Istanbul
Two months after launching a cross-border military operation into northeastern Syria, Turkey says it is planning to settle one million Syrian refugees in the area which it cleared of Kurdish forces.
Talking about the plan, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara is willing to finance the project on its own if allies were not planning to participate.
Turkish defense minister Hulusi Akar announced earlier on Monday that an almost 145-km long, 30-km deep region is now under Turkish control. This is the area that Turkey says will become a safe zone where Syrian refugees will be resettled.
Many question the reason behind Turkey insistence on creating this zone and sending refugees there.
Last week, Erdogan met his European counterparts on the sidelines of a NATO summit in London to hold talks on the safe zone plan, but Turkey’s allies in NATO have rejected its calls for financial assistance.
Ankara says the country has spent more than 40 billion US dollars on refugees and asylum seekers, while the financial assistance it has received from the EU is only three billion dollars.
Turkey currently hosts more than 3.5 million refugees from neighboring Syria. The country now seeks to resettle the refugees in Syrian territory in an attempt to reduce the political and financial burdens involved.
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