Turkey’s interior minister claimed Tuesday that since Islamist-led HTS rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad, more than 25,000 Syrians have left Turkey and returned home.
Nearly three million refugees have made Turkey their home since the civil conflict began in 2011, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration has struggled with their presence.
“The number of people returning to Syria in the last 15 days has exceeded 25,000,” Ali Yerlikaya told the official Anadolu news agency.
Ankara is in close touch with Syria’s new leaders and now focussing on the voluntary return of Syrian refugees, hoping the shift in power in Damascus will allow many of them to return home.
Yerlikaya said a migration office would be established in the Turkish embassy and consulate in Damascus and Aleppo so that the records of returning Syrians could be kept.
Turkey reopened its embassy in Damascus, nearly a week after Assad was toppled by forces backed by Ankara, and 12 years after the diplomatic outpost was shuttered early in Syria’s civil war.
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