Turks turn to violence as 300,000 refugees set to get citizenship

PanARMENIAN.Net - A wave of anti-refugee violence has hit Turkey - leaving two dead and hundreds of homes destroyed - just a week after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested offering citizenship to Syrians, the Express reports.

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, the Express says.

Bayraktar and a Syrian named as Ibrahim al-Ali died from knife wounds sustained in the fight on Saturday, July 9.

Konya locals, led by Turkish boy’s family, have since demanded that Syrians living in the area should leave town.

Local media reported that several of the 900 Syrians living in the town had left after their homes were attacked in the days after the fight.