Turkey expands border crossing facilities

Turkey has expanded its border crossing capacities to accommodate the surge in Syrian refugees seeking to return home, the interior minister said. Hundreds flocked to Turkey’s southern border with Syria, with Ankara quickly moving to expand its crossing facilities, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told reporters in remarks published on Tuesday.

“Although we had a daily capacity to accommodate 3,000 crossings, we have increased that to between 15,000 and 20,000,” Yerlikaya said.

Turkey is home to nearly three million refugees who fled after the start of the civil war in 2011, with Ankara hoping the tectonic shift in neighbouring Syria will allow many to return home.

Yerlikaya said “300-400” people crossed the frontier on Sunday but by midday on Monday, that number had “doubled.”

“We will have a meeting with Syrian NGOs on Wednesday afternoon” about the refugees’ return, he said, without specifying which groups would be involved.

Yerlikaya said that since 2016, “more than 738,000 Syrians” had voluntarily returned home, with a total of 2,935,000 still left in Turkey.

Turkey shares a 900km border with Syria with five operational crossings.

On Monday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to reopen a sixth crossing on the western end of the frontier that has been closed since 2013 to “ease the traffic.”

The Yayladagi crossing in Hatay province lies at Turkey’s southernmost point, giving entry to the western Syrian coastal region of Latakia.

“The strong wind of change in Syria will be beneficial for all Syrians, especially the refugees. As Syria gains stability, voluntary returns will increase and their 13-year longing for their homeland will come to an end,” Erdogan said.

Yerlikaya said 1.24 million -- some 42 percent -- of the Syrian refugees in Turkey hailed from the Aleppo region, whose eponymous regional capital was the first to fall into rebel hands on December 1.

Early on Monday, AFP correspondents saw hundreds of refugees massing at the Cilvegozu border crossing which lies 50km west of Aleppo, Syria’s second city.

“If you told them three days ago this was going to happen, no-one would have believed it,” Yerlikaya said.

“There has been a great tragedy in Syria and now it is time for them to rejoice. We will be making huge efforts to get them back home.”

Agence France-Presse