Turkish opposition leader pledges to "send Syrian refugees back home" ... if he wins upcoming presidential elections

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the main contender in the May 14 elections against incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reiterated his pledge “to send back” Syrian refugees in Türkiye if he wins the elections.

Addressing an election rally in the mining hub Zonguldak province in northern Türkiye on May 1, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader claimed the country “looks after 3.6 million Syrians while the youth remain unemployed.”

“By God’s will, we will send back all our Syrian brothers and sisters to their homeland within two years,” he said, according to Daily Sabah.

Kilicdaroglu was nominated by a six-party opposition bloc as presidential candidate for the elections and will also run against Muharrem Ince and Sinan Ogan: Two other candidates who more or less are on the same page with him on the anti-refugee stance. Only Erdogan opposes a rushed send-off for refugees, though he acknowledges that refugees would return to their country once Syria is safe and secure. Erdogan and government officials, however, repeated that it would be a dignified return and nobody would be forced to return to Türkiye’s war-torn neighbor.

Also on May 1, Ümit Özdag, head of the Victory Party (ZP), reiterated a vow to send back refugees. The ZP is the main component of the Ancestral Alliance, which nominated Sinan Ogan as their presidential candidate.

“We should be able to send away refugees by force like Lebanon did,” Ozdag told an event in the western province of Izmir. Lebanon recently launched a campaign against Syrians without valid residency papers. The Lebanese government, however, announced that returns would be voluntary.

“I don’t believe refugees would volunteer to return to their country,” Ozdag said in Izmir.

The ZP was repeatedly criticized in the past for its actions toward migrants and refugees, including videos Özdag shared, showing him “interrogating” refugees he came across, “recommending” them to leave Türkiye “as soon as possible” and his tweets about what critics call "propaganda" against refugees. The party came under fire from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working for refugee welfare when its supporters released a short film entitled "Silent Invasion" last year depicting a future of Türkiye with more Arabs than Turks.

Since the start of the Syrian crisis in 2011, Türkiye has been at the forefront of helping Syrian refugees. Türkiye is home to more than 3.5 million refugees from Syria, the largest Syrian refugee community in the world. As it grapples with an influx of displaced, the country strives to offer exemplary care to refugees, covering all their needs with a humanitarian expenditure of more than $30 billion (TL 398.13 billion).

Afghans are believed to be the second-largest refugee community after Syrians. Refugees are widely embraced by the public, but opposition parties often look to fuel a xenophobic, anti-refugee discourse.