Turkey says over 25,000 Syrians returned home since Assad's fall
Turkey is home to nearly three million refugees who fled the civil war that broke out in 2011 and whose presence has been an issue for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government
More than 25,000 Syrians have returned home from Turkey since Bashar al-Assad was overthrown by Islamist-led HTS rebels, Turkey's interior minister said today (24 December).
Turkey is home to nearly three million refugees who fled the civil war that broke out in 2011 and whose presence has been an issue for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government.
"The number of people returning to Syria in the last 15 days has exceeded 25,000," Ali Yerlikaya told the official Anadolu news agency.
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Ankara is in close touch with Syria's new leaders. It is now focussing on the voluntary return of Syrian refugees, hoping the shift in power in Damascus will allow many of them to return home.
Yerlikaya said a migration office would be established in the Turkish embassy and consulate in Damascus and Aleppo so that the records of returning Syrians could be kept.
Turkey reopened its embassy in Damascus, nearly a week after Assad was toppled by forces backed by Ankara, and 12 years after the diplomatic outpost was shuttered early in Syria's civil war.
