GETTY President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested Turkey could give citizenship to 300,000 migrants

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Ankara’s interior ministry is preparing to give citizenship to as many as 300,000 refugees who meet certain criteria, with the aim of encouraging highly-educated refugees to stay in the country. The plan is controversial among Turks. Following Erdogan’s announcement, hashtags translating to “No to Syrians” and “I don’t want Syrians in my country” began trending on Twitter.

Last weekend, a fight erupted between Turks and Syrians in Beysehir, a district in the conservative central province of Konya, ending in the deaths of a local teenager and a refugee. Three more were wounded in the fight, which reportedly began after 18-year-old Mehmet Bayraktar intervened when he saw four Syrians kicking a stray dog. Bayraktar and a Syrian named as Ibrahim al-Ali died from knife wounds sustained in the fight on Saturday.

GETTY The plan involves giving passports to highly-skilled refugees

Konya locals, led by Turkish boy’s family, have since demanded that Syrians living in the area should leave town. The boy’s grandfather Mehmet Bayraktar told Turkish media: “Our pain is huge. We have lost our son for nothing. As people of Bey?ehir, we have done whatever was required to meet the Syrians’ needs. “But it is out in the open what they have done. Now we want measures to be taken against Syrians and for them to leave the district.

GETTY President Erdogan has faced a backlash over the plans