ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - A top Turkish official says Turkey has extended by two months a deadline for unregistered Syrian refugees in Istanbul to leave the city.
Earlier, that deadline had been set for Tuesday of this week.
But Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in an interview with Haberturk television late on Tuesday that the deadline has been extended until Oct. 30.
Istanbul insists it cannot accept any more Syrian refugees and demands they return to other areas of Turkey where they were initially registered - or face deportation.
The city, Turkey’s most populous, already hosts the largest number of registered Syrians, nearly 548,000, out of 3.6 million Syrian refugees who have found a home in Turkey.
Soylu signalled that Syrians working or studying in Istanbul would be exempt from the deportation order.
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