Builder-in-Chief: Erdogan’s Real-Estate Dream Drifts to Syria
- Turkish president imagines building Syrian cities from scratch
- State housing agency CEO says he’s waiting for the assignment
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Turkey’s president looks at northern Syria and sees what others don’t: a massive real estate project.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose army is attempting to clear 5,000 square kilometers in northern Syria of Islamic State, talks about building entire cities when his soldiers’ work is done. In regular addresses, he describes a future in which refugees return home to Turkish-built apartment blocks supplemented by Turkish-built schools and social facilities. That may be the only way to get some of the nearly 3 million Syrians in Turkey to return home and begin reconstructing their country, he says.