Turkey expects more refugees after ISIL advance

“There is a clash there,” he said, referring to a fresh fight in Ras al-Ayn, also known as Serekaniye, a Syrian region near the town of Haseke. 

Some five villages by Turkish border have been bombed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the official said. 

“Turkey is a big state and is receiving those people without any discrimination,” the governor said, adding that the number of new incomes were not at around 50,000 or 100,000, dismissing such media reports. 

The process of taking new refugees was slow because all newcomers were being documented, he said. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said in the Mediterranean province of Antalya June 3 that Turkey had spent around $6 billion to cover the needs of some 2 million refugees from Syria. 

The Syrian regime has clearly given air support to ISIL, Çavuşoğlu said June 2 in his remarks after a meeting of foreign ministers in Paris of the international coalition set up to counter ISIL in Paris.

“We have always been saying the regime [of Bashar al-Assad] and Daesh are in cooperation. Recently, we started to see it clearly. The U.S. State Department spokeswoman also said this yesterday,” said the minister, using the Arabic acronym of ISIL. 

Marie Harf said on June 1 that there were reports indicating “the regime [was] making airstrikes in support of ISIL’s advance on Aleppo, aiding the extremists in their attacks on the Syrian population.”

“The regime is at the root of all problems. How can this be stopped?” asked Çavuşoğlu.

He added that the train-and-equip program for Syrian opposition forces was not enough on its own, but he did not give any further details about his suggestions.