Turkey’s presidential candidate and rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, has promised to expel the refugees after the election.
The Turkish opposition leader adopted a strategy of highlighting nationalism and cracking down on refugees to win the election.
He has promised that if he wins the May 28 elections "10 million refugees” as he stokes anti-immigrant sentiment in a bid to win nationalist votes and defeat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The candidate of the six-party opposition alliance made provocative comments accusing the government of exaggerating 10 million "Allowing “irregular” immigrants to enter the country.
The economist and bureaucrat warned that the number of migrants in Turkey, with a population of 85 million, could rise to 30 million, without providing any evidence for the figures he cited.
“Erdogan did not protect (Turkey’s) borders and honor, you deliberately brought more than 10 million refugees into this country, I am announcing here as soon as I am in power,” Kılıçdaroğlu added on Thursday. Come, I will send all refugees home.
Syrians began fleeing to Turkey and other countries in 2011 as President Bashar al-Assad waged a war to crush an uprising against his rule.
Turkey has hosted more Syrian refugees than any other country, with around 3.6 million registered in the country.