Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan | EPA/Dai Kurokawa Erdoğan: Syrian refugees in Turkey could become citizens Turkish president says the interior ministry is working on ‘the issue.’

Turkey has offered millions of Syrians, fleeing war, a shelter in the past five years, and now the neighboring country could make many of the refugees, citizens, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said.

"There are steps our interior ministry has taken on the issue,” Erdoğan was quoted as saying in a report on Sunday by the state-run Anadolu news agency. He was speaking late Saturday in Kilis province in southern Turkey that is the host to 120,000 Syrians.

"We will give the chance to [acquire] citizenship by helping out these brothers and sisters by monitoring through offices set up by the ministry," Erdoğan said.

At least 2.7 million Syrians who have fled the civil war in their country are being sheltered at government-run camps in Turkey. Tens of thousands of others have fled to the country since the Syrian 2011 uprising against President Bashar Assad morphed into a war a year later without officially registering as refugees.

The relentless conflict has displaced nearly half of Syria's pre-war population of 23 million, within the country and abroad. More than 4 million Syrians have fled to neighboring countries, with most of them seeking shelter in Turkey, but also in Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.