Unnamed sources told Turkish media Haberturk on Friday that 140 villages, each to house 5,000 Syrian refugees, and 10 districts, each accommodating 30,000 Syrian refugees, will be built in the so-called safe zone Turkey wants to see established some 30-40 kilometres deep into Syrian territory.
In total, 200,000 residences will be built to house about a million Syrians who have fled to Turkey since the civil conflict erupted in 2011 and the subsequent rise of the brutal extremist Islamic State (ISIS).
The construction plans also include sport halls, schools, youth centres, mosques, and medical clinics. The whole project is estimated to cost about $27 billion. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shared this plan with American officials during his visit to the United Nations General Assembly this week, according to Turkish media reports.
Turkey and the US agreed in early August to set up a safe zone in some parts of northern Syria to address Ankara’s security concerns about the Kurdish forces in northern Syria. Ankara and Washington have also discussed relocating some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey, though they appear to still disagree on the details.
“We want to be able to resettle two million Syrians into the peace corridor with the support of the international community,” Erdogan told world leaders at the UN on Tuesday, holding up a map of the proposed safe zone that encompasses Turkey’s entire border with the Kurdish region of northern Syria.
"If we can extend this corridor to the Deir ez-Zor-Raqqa line, we can increase the number of Syrians to return home from Turkey, Europe, and other countries to up to three million," he added.
The depth of this zone is a major point of disagreement between Turkey, the US, and the Kurdish-led forces and civil administration that governs the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES).
Kurdish officials have said the zone will not exceed 14 kilometres and that refugees not originally from the area will be prohibited from settling there.
“We have informed the Americans that only local people from the area can come back. And they know this,” Ilham Ahmed, co-leader of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) told the Defense Post in an interview on September 24.
Asked about the US position on this issue, Washington’s special envoy for Syria James Jeffrey said in a briefing on Thursday that any returns must be voluntary and should involve the UN’s refugee agency. “But we have signed up for the return of refugees to their homes if they came to that area,” he added.
“That’s part of our overall position on the Syrian conflict in general, and including the northeast, and including in this arrangement,” he explained.
The US-backed armed group in northern Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), is led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey sees as the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Ankara considers the SDF presence on its border a security threat. American officials have said they understand Turkey’s concerns but will not abandon their Kurdish allies who led the offensive against ISIS in northern Syria.
Complying with the safe zone agreement made between the US and Turkey, the SDF has withdrawn from some areas along the border and destroyed their fortifications to demonstrate their commitment to the deal.
Turkish and US troops have begun aerial and ground patrols in the proposed safe zone, but Erdogan says this is not enough. He has threatened to go it alone, establishing the safe zone by the end of September if the US does not act more quickly.
