Has Turkey’s policy on Syrian refugees started to backfire?
The Syrian refugee question is set to pose a major political headache for Erdogan in the coming period.
The myth of Turkish sympathy and tolerance toward Syrian refugees, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been promoting self-righteously for years, is crumbling fast. Research shows that an increasing number of Turks now see the Syrians as unwelcome guests and a source of social unrest and economic disruption.
This has left Erdogan and his administration grappling with a problem that is considered by many to be largely of the government's own making.
When the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, Erdogan announced an open-door policy for Syrian refugees — while other countries were acting cautiously — by citing humanitarian considerations and the need for Islamic solidarity against oppression.
Driven by his innate antipathy for the West, Erdogan also used this policy to lambaste European countries for slamming their doors on the Syrians, while avoiding mention of non-European countries that were doing the same.
