KOBANI, Syria (North Press) – IDPs from northern Syria are concerned that they might not be able to return to their homes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced a project on May 3 to settle one million Syrian refugees in the Turkish-held areas in northern Syria.
Those IDPs condemn this project which, according to them, aims to implement a demographic change in their areas.
Turkey’s Minister of the Interior Süleyman Soylu said on Thursday that his country plans to build about 250,000 houses in northern Syria in the areas of al-Bab, Jarablus, Ras al-Ain and Tel Abyad, with “the aim of providing the voluntary return for one million Syrians.”
He added that these projects would be funded by international relief organizations, and would target the Turkey-based Syrian refugees who hold the temporary protection ID card (Kimlik).
Muhammad Rashid, an IDP from Afrin and a teacher in the University of Kobani, said, “the decision of building settlements in the Turkish-occupied areas aims at making a demographic change similar to the Syrian regime’s Arab Belt [the Syrian government’s project of Arabization of Hasakah governorate to change the Kurdish population in favor of Arabs].”
He said that part of the demographic change would happen by bringing Syrian families who hold the Turkish Islamic ideology and put them in the Turkish-held areas in Syria.
Rashid condemned the new Turkish plan, saying, “the decision is complementing what was previously built in the villages of Afrin. The aim is to end the dream of Afrin’s people to return to their homes and villages.”
Villages turned to military zones
Despite residents and IDPs in different parts of Syria and Syrian refugees in Turkey denouncing the settlement project, the Syrian government has not taken any official stance towards the Turkish plan.
“The Syrian regime must act globally to expose the Turkish practices in the occupied territories such as its policies of Turkification and demographic change; these policies will have serious consequences for the security and safety of Syrian society in the future,” Rashid added.
Some IDPs are afraid of returning to their cities and villages in northern Syria. They believe that these areas, which Turkey wants to settle the Syrian refugees in, are “unsafe” and subject to conflict at any given moment.
Muhammad Ali, an IDP from Tel Abyad, north of Raqqa, said that his village had turned into a military zone after Turkey established a military base and intelligence department there. It is also a home for some of the Turkish-backed fighters’ families, Ali said.
Turkish forces and the affiliated Syrian opposition armed factions known as Syrian National Army (SNA) occupied Tel Abyad, north of Raqqa, and Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) north of Hasakah, in October 2019 following a military operation called “Peace Spring”.
No place to return
Ali, who lives in Kobani and works as a doctor, told North Press that some old people tried to return to their villages in Tel Abyad but they were arrested by the SNA members who asked for a ransom in exchange for the elderly’s freedom.
“The sons had no choice but to pay the ransom. The elderly were then released after agreeing that they would not stay in their villages and return to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria’s (AANES) areas,” Ali said.
Ali believed it was evident that the Turkish project aimed to change the region’s demography, “especially after displacing all the Kurds from Tel Abyad and Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain).”
According to Ali, Turkey aims – by building settlements for Syrian Arab refugees – to minimize the Kurdish population on the Turkish-Syrian border and to establish a long-term authority in the region; this would happen by building bases and Turkish-appointed local Syrian councils.
Turkey aims to settle those Syrian refugees in areas predominantly populated by Kurds, Ali added.
Destroying the homes of the original inhabitants is another policy practiced by Turkey in the region. The goal is to make sure that the inhabitants would have no place to return even if a political settlement took place, according to Ali.