Erdogan defends plan offering Syrians Turkish citizenship

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has defended his plan to give Syrian refugees Turkish citizenship, arguing there was ample space in the country after a backlash against the suggestion, in comments published Monday. Erdogan said on July 2 that Syrians could eventually be granted Turkish citizenship “if they want it”, in remarks which were met with […]

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has defended his plan to give Syrian refugees Turkish citizenship, arguing there was ample space in the country after a backlash against the suggestion, in comments published Monday.
Erdogan said on July 2 that Syrians could eventually be granted Turkish citizenship “if they want it”, in remarks which were met with anger from opposition politicians and social media users.
More than 2.7 million Syrian refugees now live in Turkey, where they have guest status, according to the Turkish government.
In his first comments on the issue since announcing the plan, the president said if Syrians had dual citizenship it did not mean they had to return to Syria once the conflict was over.
“Is it a must for dual citizens, for people with citizenship, to return to their countries of birth?” he told Turkish reporters on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Warsaw, quoted by the Hurriyet daily.
“When Turks went to Germany in 1963, no one asked whether they would or would not return to Turkey,” he said, referring to the Turkish so-called Gastarbeiter who helped Germany’s economic recovery after World War II.