Turkey: Stretched to limit, but won’t say no to refugees

KILIS: Turkey has reached the end of its “capacity to absorb” refugees but will continue to take them in, the deputy premier said Sunday, as his country faced mounting pressure to open its border to tens of thousands of Syrians who have fled a government onslaught.

Turkish authorities say up to 35,000 Syrians have massed along the border, which remained closed for a third day on Sunday. The governor for the Turkish border province of Kilis said Saturday that Turkey would provide aid to the displaced within Syria, but would only open the gates in the event of an “extraordinary crisis.”
Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told CNN-Turk television that Turkey is now hosting a total of 3 million refugees, including 2.5 million Syrians.
“Turkey has reached the end of its capacity to absorb (refugees),” Kurtulmus said. “But in the end, these people have nowhere else to go. Either they will die beneath the bombings and Turkey will ... watch the massacre like the rest of the world, or we will open our borders.”
Kurtulmus said some 15,000 refugees from Syria were admitted in the past few days, without elaborating. He put the number of refugees being cared for on the other side of the border at 30,000.
“At the moment, we are admitting some, and are trying to keep others there (in Syria) by providing them with every kind of humanitarian support,” Kurtulmus added. “We are not in a position to tell them not to come. If we do, we would be abandoning them to their deaths.” He did not explain why the Turkish border gate at Oncupinar, opposite the Bab Al-Salameh crossing in Syria, was being kept closed or why tens of thousands of refugees were not immediately being let in.
In Syria, pro-government forces pressed ahead with their offensive in the northern Aleppo province, which has caused the massive displacement of civilians toward the Turkish border. Syrian opposition activists said Syrian ground troops backed by Russian airstrikes were engaged in intense fighting with insurgents around the village of Ratyan and surrounding areas north of Aleppo city.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Kurdish officials said the main Kurdish militia in the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, north of Aleppo, was taking in some of those stuck on the border.
The army has almost fully encircled Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and one-time commercial center, preparing the way for a blockade. The main supply line to the Turkish border has already been cut and many residents of the city were looking to leave, anticipating severe shortages in coming days.