Turkey's citizenship for Syrian refugees threatens ethnic balance
ISTANBUL, Turkey (Kurdistan24) – A survey conducted by Kurdistan24 concluded that Turkey's plan to grant citizenship to Syrian refugees has provoked an intense public debate among Kurds of Turkey and Syria about the harmful impacts of this initiative on ethnic balance.
Hawaz Egid, the representative of Syria’s Kurdish National Council in Istanbul told Kurdistan24 granting Turkish citizenship to Syrian refugees may have long-term negative effects.
“[Turkey’s president Recep Tayyib] Erdogan’s plan may help some refugees get their lives back on track, but it will certainly disturb the demographic structure of the Kurdish areas in both Turkey and Syria in the long run,” he said.
Some Syrian Kurds who are living in Turkey welcome Erdogan’s plan as they have been lost their homes and are dispalced in Turkey.
“My hometown was totally demolished in Rojava [Syrian Kurdistan] and I am a homeless refugee in Turkey, so the Turkish citizenship will help me have a good job, more flexible travel opportunity, and maybe a house,” Bahoz told Kurdistan24.
Critics argue that Erdogan just wants to add 3 million new voters to his base, provoking flames of anti-Syrian sentiment in Turkey.
“Cemil Ipekci, one of Turkey's best-known fashion designers, pitched in, causing an uproar with a blatantly anti-Syrian remark following Erdogan’s announcement,” Al-Monitor reported on Tuesday.
“There are those who are trying — in the name of injecting fresh blood — to put 3 million more people among us who sold their country and fled,” Ipekci tweeted last week.
[Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), talks to the media before casting his ballot at a polling station during a general election in Istanbul, Turkey November 1, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)]
On the matter of threatening the Kurdish presence, Selahattin Demirtas, co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) highlighted this point in an earlier exclusive interview with Kurdistan24 three months ago.
“As the Syrian government planted Arabs in northern Syria in 1961 to disturb the ethnic balance of the Kurdish areas, Erdogan is doing the same in southern Turkey,” Demirtas said.
“By granting Turkish citizenship to Arab refugees, and as the indigenous people (Kurds) are leaving due to the security operations, the demographic structure of the Kurdish areas will gradually change,” he said.
According to Syria Regional Refugee Response statistics updated on June 30, 2016, the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey has reached 2,733,044 million.
According to the latest Kurdistan24 TV documentary, about 300,000 Syrian Kurds live in Turkey since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, and about 50,000 returned to Syria after the liberation of the Kurdish town of Kobani from the Islamic State (IS) in January 2015.
On July 5, Erdogan announced plans by the Turkish government to grant citizenship to some of the nearly 3 million Syrian refugees who fled war in neighboring Syria, particularly those with qualifications that can be beneficial to Turkey.
Editing by Ava Homa
