ANKARA (AFP) – Turkiye’s opposition leader vowed on Thursday to send back millions of migrants in a strident message aimed at winning the backing of an ultra-nationalist who helped push last weekend’s presidential vote to a runoff.
Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu delivered his first public address since a landmark election last Sunday in which he came almost five points behind President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Kilicdaroglu gave the opposition’s best performance in Erdogan’s two-decade rule.
But it fell short of expectations set by pre-election polling and left the opposition visibly depressed.
The 74-year-old has since revamped his campaign team and toughened his message to win over Turkiye’s right-wing voters in the May 28 runoff. He also plans to meet Sinan Ogan – a far-right figure who picked up 5.2 per cent of the vote and is still weighing his endorsement.
Kilicdaroglu tried on Thursday to toughen his message considerably from the more inclusive tone he set in the first stage of the campaign. Ogan has said he will only back a candidate who cracks down on migrants and fights “terrorism”.
Erdogan and his party were lionised across swathes of the Muslim world for their more embracing stance towards those fleeing conflicts in countries such as Syria.
A separate 2016 deal between Ankara and the European Union helped stem the continent’s migrant crisis by allowing those trying to reach Western Europe to settle in Turkiye. Turkiye won billions of euros in funding from Brussels for the programme. But an economic crisis that gathered pace as the election neared sent anti-migrant sentiment soaring.
Erdogan’s government has tried to find a middle ground.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Thursday that Turkiye had already sent more than half a million Syrians back.
