Following Assad’s ouster on Sunday, hundreds flocked to Turkey’s southern border with Syria, with Ankara quickly moving to expand its crossing facilities, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told reporters in remarks published on Tuesday. “Although we had a daily capacity to accommodate 3,000 crossings, we have increased that to between 15,000 and 20,000,” Yerlikaya said.

Turkey is home to nearly three million refugees who fled after the start of the civil war in 2011, with Ankara hoping the tectonic shift in neighbouring Syria will allow many to return home. Yerlikaya said “300-400” people crossed the frontier on Sunday but by midday on Monday, that number had “doubled”. “We will have a meeting with Syrian NGOs on Wednesday afternoon” about the refugees’ return, he said, without specifying which groups would be involved.

Yerlikaya said that since 2016, “more than 738,000 Syrians” had voluntarily returned home, with a total of 2,935,000 still left in Turkey.

Turkey shares a 900-kilometre (560-mile) border with Syria with five operational crossings. On Monday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to reopen a sixth crossing on the western end of the frontier that has been closed since 2013 to “ease the traffic”. […] “The strong wind of change in Syria will be beneficial for all Syrians, especially the refugees. As Syria gains stability, voluntary returns will increase and their 13-year longing for their homeland will come to an end,” Erdogan said.

With anti-Syrian sentiment running high within Turkish society, Ankara is keen to see as many refugees as possible return to their homeland

On Tuesday, Erdogan held a string of separate phone conversations about Syria with European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen, NATO boss Mark Rutte and Italy Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, his office said. Speaking with von der Leyen, he said that efforts to ensure “the safe and voluntary return of Syrians to their country was being planned” and telling her “the reconstruction of Syria will speed up the Syrians’ return”…