Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Syrian refugees living in Turkey could eventually be granted citizenship.
“I want to announce some good news,” Erdogan said late on Saturday at a dinner to break the Ramadan fast in Kilis province, on the Syrian border.
“We are going to help our Syrian friends in offering them the chance, if they want it, to acquire Turkish nationality.”
The Interior Ministry will shortly announce how the citizenship procedure would work, Erdogan added.
The president did not specify whether all of the 2.7 million Syrians that Turkey is hosting would be able to apply, and gave no details on eligibility criteria or how long the process would take.
“We regard you as our brothers and sisters. You are not far from your homeland, but only from your homes and your land … Turkey is also your homeland,” Erdogan told a group of Syrian refugees in Kilis, a city hosting more than 120,000 refugees, which exceeds its population.

Syrian refugee children chant slogans behind a fence at the Nizip refugee camp in Gaziantep province, southeastern Turkey

Ankara has refused to grant refugee status to Syrians who have fled the devastating war across the border since 2011, referring to them as “guests”.
Around 2.7 million Syrians who have fled the civil war in their country are being sheltered at camps inside Turkey.
Since then, more than 250,000 people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced, according to UN figures.
The conflict in Syria has now driven more than 4 million people – a sixth of the country’s population – to seek sanctuary in neighboring countries, making it the largest refugee crisis for a quarter of a century, according to the UN.

Source: Anadolu Agency, Aljazeera, 3 July 2016