Kılıçdaroğlu vows to normalize ties with Syria if CHP takes power

KOCAELİ

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has pledged to introduce a new foreign policy by normalizing ties with Syria and ending the “tragedy” of Syrian refugees in Turkey if they take power.

“We will end the fight with Syria and all our neighbors,” he said in the northwestern province of Kocaeli on June 24.
Stating that there are around 6-6.5 million Syrians in Turkey, Kılıçdaroğlu asked the government: “How are we going to solve it?”

The CHP leader said they would send the Syrian refugees back to their country but after providing infrastructure and housing for them.

“We will open embassies. We will make the Syrians’ homes and shelters. All kinds of support will come from the West in this regard. We will tell the Syrians that their homes, roads, hospitals and nurseries are ready.”

The CHP leader emphasized that this move would be in the interest of Turkey.

“We will send them back to their country. This is not racism. We have to defend the interests of our own country. But we don’t want to be unfair to anyone. Yes, there was a fight there, millions of people lost their lives. Some people went abroad, some drowned in the sea, and the bodies of some of their children washed up on the shore. We will end all this human tragedy,” Kılıçdaroğlu noted.

He also said his party has achieved the biggest change in the past 10 years compared to the other political parties in Turkey.

“You can say that the CHP did not have any faults in this process? It had faults. As the chair of the CHP, I am also self-criticizing. We were wrong too. But I’m trying to correct them,” he stated.

“Let me say this clearly: The CHP has experienced the biggest change in the last 10 years,” he added