Turkey’s CHP Leader Calls for Restoring Ties with Damascus, Sending Refugees Home

Police and security personnel stand guard outside the private Sanko University Hospital where a fire broke out in the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) intensive care unit in Gaziantep, Turkey, December 19, 2020. Kadir Gunes/Demiroren News Agency via REUTERS
Police and security personnel stand guard outside the private Sanko University Hospital where a fire broke out in the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) intensive care unit in Gaziantep, Turkey, December 19, 2020. Kadir Gunes/Demiroren News Agency via REUTERS
TT

Turkey’s CHP Leader Calls for Restoring Ties with Damascus, Sending Refugees Home

Police and security personnel stand guard outside the private Sanko University Hospital where a fire broke out in the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) intensive care unit in Gaziantep, Turkey, December 19, 2020. Kadir Gunes/Demiroren News Agency via REUTERS
Police and security personnel stand guard outside the private Sanko University Hospital where a fire broke out in the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) intensive care unit in Gaziantep, Turkey, December 19, 2020. Kadir Gunes/Demiroren News Agency via REUTERS

Turkey’s opposition leader and Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu has called on Ankara to restore diplomatic relations and bilateral ties with the Syrian government of President Bashar Al-Assad.

Kilicdaroglu has also urged the reopening of the Turkish and Syrian embassies in the two countries, stressing the need for peace in Syria so that refugees may return to their homes.

“If we were in power, there would be no problem in Syria, but relations with Damascus need improving in any way,” said the leader in an implicit hint directed at the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

“The embassies must open again,” added Kilicdaroglu.

As for how Syrian refugees are affecting Turkey’s economy, Kilicdaroglu said they are creating unwanted competition to local industries and guilds.

“Syrians settled here and carry on their business, which caused a serious problem for the industrialists and the residents,” he said during a visit to Turkey’s southern Gaziantep province on Sunday.

Noting that there are between 500,000-700,000 Syrians in Gaziantep, Kilicdaroglu stressed the need to change the current situation and bring peace to Syria immediately.

For Kilicdaroglu, Syrians may pose a serious demographic threat in the future, especially that there are more Syrians than Turks in the southern Kilis province.

He went on to push for the European Union (EU) to take over reconstruction in the war-torn country.

“The EU should build roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, and parks in Syria,” said Kilicdaroglu, adding that after reconstruction, Syrians must be told to “go home,” where they’ll have all their needs met.

So far, it is the CHP spearheading efforts for reestablishing ties with the Syrian regime in Turkey.

The opposition party believes that Turkey’s current policy on Syria was based on grave miscalculations.

Turkey hosts around 3.7 million Syrians, the majority of whom are settled in Gaziantep and Istanbul.



Over 100 Patients to Be Evacuated from Gaza, WHO Says

 A youth salvages items from the rubble of a building destroyed in Israeli strikes in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on November 5, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A youth salvages items from the rubble of a building destroyed in Israeli strikes in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on November 5, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
TT

Over 100 Patients to Be Evacuated from Gaza, WHO Says

 A youth salvages items from the rubble of a building destroyed in Israeli strikes in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on November 5, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A youth salvages items from the rubble of a building destroyed in Israeli strikes in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on November 5, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

More than 100 patients including children will be transferred out of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in a rare medical evacuation from the Palestinian enclave during the Israel-Hamas war, a World Health Organization official said on Tuesday.

The WHO says fewer than 300 patients have been evacuated from Gaza since early May, when Israel expanded its military offensive southwards and took over the southern Rafah Crossing with Egypt, which had been used for medical transfers.

Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said the patients, including children with trauma injuries and chronic diseases, would depart in a large convoy via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel.

Under arrangements made by the WHO, the patients will then fly to the United Arab Emirates from Ramon Airport in southern Israel, and some will travel on to Romania, he said.

"These are ad hoc measures. What we have requested repeatedly is a sustained medevac (medical evacuation) outside of Gaza," Peeperkorn told a press conference.

Asked whether Israel had approved the transfer, he said he was hopeful it would be facilitated by Israeli authorities.

He said more than 12,000 people were awaiting transfer, adding: "We cannot continue the way we do now."

COGAT, the Israeli military agency responsible for Palestinian affairs, says it actively facilitates the departure of seriously ill or injured patients, adding that the scope of such evacuations was determined by the capacity of organizations and countries to receive them.

As of last week, it said 10 groups of patients had been evacuated through Israel and it was willing to coordinate more.

Peeperkorn was part of a WHO convoy that on Nov. 3 provided some relief for the busy al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals in northern Gaza which he said were barely operational because of medical and staff shortages.

"For al-Awda we are very concerned because the hospital needs urgent fuel and medical supplies, otherwise it might become non-functional over the coming week," he said of the hospital in Jabalia, just north of Gaza City.

Israel accuses Hamas fighters of hiding among civilians, including in hospitals, in the war that began after the deadly Hamas attack on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023.

In a night-time raid on the Kamal Adwan Hospital last month, an Israeli military official said around 100 Hamas fighters were captured, some posing as medical staff, along with weapons. Hamas rejected the accusations.