Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has presented a plan to transfer at least two million refugees to an area in northeast Syria, saying that Turkey doesn't intend to host refugees forever.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey is conscious of the economic, social, and cultural difficulties in hosting the 3.6 million Syrian refugees currently in the country, adding it can't "host them forever."
Erdogan shared his plans during the reopening ceremony for the Turkish Parliament in Ankara on Tuesday following the summer recess, and presented new details on a plan to resettle Syrians beyond the Turkish border. According to the plan, Turkey would aim to transfer at least two million refugees and migrants currently hosted to an area in northeast Syria, where 200,000 new residences are being built at an estimated cost of more than $26 billion.
However, there are also some issues on which Turkey and the US don't appear to agree when it comes to their joint operations in that region. Washington supports local Kurdish YPG militants in the area who have been fighting against Syrian President Bashar Assad's military for more than 7 years, while Turkey maintains that they are terrorists.
"We don't have other options besides moving forward with our plan east of the Euphrates," Erdogan said, highlighting the differences between the US and Turkey.