Erdogan’s rival hardens tone, courting Turkish nationalists

Turkey’s opposition leader vowed 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.

Secular opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu delivered his first public address since a landmark election 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 Turkey’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 percent of the vote and is still weighing his endorsement.

Kilicdaroglu tried Thursday to toughen his message considerably from the more inclusive tone he set in the first stage of the campaign.

“Erdogan, you did not protect the borders and honour of the country,” the former civil servant said.

“You have deliberately brought more than 10 million refugees to this country... As soon as I come to power, I will send all the refugees home.”

Ogan has said he will only back a candidate who cracks down on migrants and fights “terrorism” -- a code word in Turkey for Kurdish militants.

Veteran Turkey watcher Howard Eissenstat of the Middle East Institute said Kilicdaroglu was wooing nationalists by attacking Syrians because Kurds made up an important part of his base.

“The Kurds are a big part of his coalition,” Eissenstat said. “But the Syrians are a relatively safe target because, for the large part, they cannot vote.”

Erdogan and his Islamic-rooted party were lionised across swathes of the Muslim world for their more embracing stance towards those fleeing conflicts in countries such as Syria.

Turkey’s five-million-strong refugee and migrant population became the world’s largest in the past decade.

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 Turkey.

Turkey won billions of euros in funding from Brussels for the programme.