Dec 4, 2017

ANKARA — Seemingly contradictory statements by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and government ministers on how much money Turkey has spent on Syrian refugees are raising further question marks on an already controversial issue in the country. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, has turned up the pressure on Erdogan to explain in detail the $30 billion that the president says the Syrian refugees have cost Ankara.

Addressing Erdogan in a speech in parliament Nov. 28, Kilicdaroglu said, “Wherever you went, you said you had spent $30 billion for the Syrians. Easier said than done. We look at the Syrians and most of them are beggars or poor fellows. Some have even died from hunger. Even at the United Nations General Assembly, you spoke of spending $30 billion. I am asking you to explain [the figure].… When, where and for whom did you spend that $30 billion?”

In February, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu had put the Syrian refugee bill since 2011 at $25 billion. Erdogan then put the figure at $30 billion — first July 8 at the G-20 summit in Hamburg and then Sept. 19 at the UN General Assembly. Similarly, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said in August that Turkey had spent $30 billion for the Syrians, stressing that Turkey had the largest number of refugees in the world. In further remarks in London on Nov. 27, Yildirim said that 250,000 Syrian babies had been born in Turkey and that 600,000 Syrian children were receiving education in schools in the country. In September 2015, then-Deputy Prime Minister and government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus had put the sum spent on Syrians at $7.6 billion.

According to these figures provided at different times, the bill of the Syrians swelled by more than $22 billion in two years’ time and $5 billion in five months’ time, even though the number of Syrian refugees has not seen an extraordinary increase in the past few years. The regularly updated statistics on the website of the General Directorate of Migration Management show that the total number of Syrian refugees stood at 3,320,814 as of Nov. 16, with only 228,408 of them in refugee camps and the remaining living across Turkey via their own means.

The $30 billion bill suggests that Turkey has spent roughly $9,000 per Syrian. This means about $36,000 per family of four and even more for larger families with more than two children, which are typical for the refugee community. Of note, the minimum wage in Turkey is 1,400 Turkish lira ($368) per month, and millions of Turks survive on that much money.