A poll conducted by the Immigration and Policy Center at the Turkish University of Hacitepe under the title "Adaptive Social Acceptance" has found that 72.2% of the Turkish people welcome the Syrian people and see that they have been subjected to injustice in their country, viewing them as guests and brothers in religion with the Turks.
The report emphasized that the results of the poll indicate the Turkish community's general satisfaction with the Syrian presence in their country.
Chairman of the Immigration and Policy Center, Murat Erdogan, announced the results of the poll at a press conference held at the university's headquarters in Ankara.
According to Erdogan, the poll lasted from 3 to 12 October of this year, and was conducted in 20 states, surveying 1,501 people over the age of 18 years.
The center divided the provinces into interior regions and external ones. It considered the provinces of Hatay, Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Adana and Mardin as interior provinces, and the remaining 15 provinces were considered external.
The proportion of male participants in the poll was 50.3%, while the proportion of female was 49.7%. The focus during the poll process was on the language of the participants, their ethnic affiliations and their political orientations.
According to the data provided by the Interior Ministry, the report stated that the number of Syrians in Turkey amounted to 1,565,000 people. It found that 86% of them are scattered across the country. This means that 1.4 million Syrians are living outside the camps allocated for the refugees.
The report included some of the problems caused by the presence of Syrians in Turkey, with the problem of registration topping the list. It was stated in the report that only 57% of Syrians have been officially registered. About 600,000 Syrians live in Turkey without registration and there are new arrivals every day.
The report dealt also with the problem of food consumption, pointing out that the Turkish state has spent more than $4.5 billion since the beginning of the Syrian crisis.
The results also showed that 30% of the respondents have provided moral and material aid to Syrians. But 68.3% people surveyed indicated that they were not able to lend a helping hand.
The results also indicated that 70.7% of the Turkish people believe that the presence of the Syrians in Turkey is damaging the Turkish economy.
The percentage of those who believe that Turkish citizens have lost their jobs because of Syrians have reached 56.1%. This figure rose in the interior provinces to 68.9%.
Based on the results of the same poll, it appeared that the Turkish people do not see that there is a common culture between them and Syrians. The proportion of supporters for this idea was only 17.2%, but the majority of Turks did not see a problem with neighboring Syrian families, with 50.2% of them accepting the idea.
With regard to the issue of Syrians returning home after the war ends, the poll results showed that 45.1% of Turks believe all Syrians will return to their home after the war, while 54.9% of them believed that a large number of Syrians will remain in Turkey.
Based on these results, the head of the center disclosed his expectation that nearly a million Syrians will remain in Turkey even after the end of the war in their country.
The final result of the poll conducted by the organizers concluded that 72.2% of Turks do not oppose the presence of Syrians on their land.
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