“ERDOGAN had better not set foot here, it’s all his fault, government resign,” shouted Yusuf, a teenager standing near a mourning tent in Reyhanli, where twin car-bomb explosions on May 11th killed at least 51 people, wounded scores more and left a once sleepy border town looking like war-racked Syria. Locals blame the interventionist Syrian policies of Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for the attacks that ripped out the commercial heart of Reyhanli, until recently a bastion of Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) party.Reyhanli and nearby villages are home to tens of thousands of Syrian refugees and opposition fighters who have poured into Turkey since 2011. Within minutes of the blasts locals vented their rage at the Syrians, prompting many to flee. “The government should never have allowed refugees to live in the towns and least of all so close to the border,” said Hasan Ozdemir, editor of a local newspaper whose windows were blown out. “Arming the opposition fighters and providing them haven, that was the worst blunder of all.”Turkey blamed the Syrian government and a local leftist terrorist outfit “with close ties to Syrian intelligence services…
The Economist: Europe
