30,000 Syrians eligible to vote in Turkish elections: PM

ANKARA

Thousands of Syrians returned to Turkey after spending the Eid al-Fitr holiday in Syria this weekend. (Photo: Doğan News Agency)

Some 30,000 Syrians are eligible to vote in the June 24 elections in Turkey, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has said.

Speaking to journalists in the western province of İzmir, Yıldırım announced “around 30,000 Syrians have received Turkish citizenship so far.”

“They have the right to vote but I do not know how many of them will use that right. They are our guests and they will return to their country,” the prime minister said.

He stressed that the Syrians in Turkey “must obey the Turkish law.”

“If they do not, then we will take them by their hand back to where they came from,” said Yıldırım.

By the end of last year, Syria’s seven-year conflict alone had pushed more than 6.3 million people out of the country, accounting for nearly one-third of the global refugee population.

Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees by far, with 3.5 million registered in the country by the end of 2017, most of them Syrians, according to a June 19 report by the United Nations.

Turkey is scheduled to hold presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24.