Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced an ambitious plan to encourage the return of Syrian refugees, a hot-button issue increasingly dominating Turkey’s agenda ahead of elections next year. But his move is hardly more than a return to an already failed project.
Three years ago, Erdogan had presented a plan at the UN General Assembly to move 2 million Syrian refugees to prospective new settlements in northern Syria, but he failed to muster international support as the plan required the creation of a safe zone and multibillion-dollar funds.