What is the truth behind the claim that Turkey created a "Civil Registry" in Idlib?

The claim

The Syrian regime claimed that Turkey created a General Civil Registry in Idlib Governorate and withdrew the Syrian IDs and family cards from the residents and replaced it with Turkish cards, considering this as the "peak of the Turkification policy," as the regime described it.

The claim was published by the regime’s official media on June 6, 2021, citing an unnamed official source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which he said that “Syria strongly condemns the Turkish regime’s creation of a General Civil Registry in the terrorist-controlled areas of Idlib and the withdrawal of the Syrian IDs and family card and replace it with Turkish documents.”

The next day, media outlets affiliated with the Syrian regime’s allies published reports on the same claim. On June 7, the Iranian Al-Alam channel published a news article entitled “A dangerous Turkish move in Idlib, northern Syria,” in which it claimed that “local sources in Idlib It revealed the intention of the Turkish forces and the armed groups they support to create a so-called General Civil Registry in the province that falls under Turkey's authority, with the aim of Turkicizing those areas.

Russia Today channel contributed to the same claim based on an opinion article published in the Russian newspaper “Kommersant”, titled “Idlib Feels Turkic”, in which the author of the article, Russian journalist Marianna Belenkaya, relied on the statements of the Syrian regime’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the claim, and said this is an indication of the diminishing possibility of Damascus ability to regain its control over the north and north-east of the country.

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Refute the claim

Verify-Sy correspondents in Idlib denied the claim that "Turkey established a general civil registry in Idlib governorate.” Stressing that the governorate under the control of the "Hayat Tahrir al-Sham" faction includes a number of Civil Registry offices under the control of the HTS-led Salvation Government.



According to our correspondents, the work of the Directorate of Civil Affairs in Idlib is limited to registering birth, death, marriage, and divorce as well as issuing documents for use by the residents of the area, noting that the Directorate has been issuing IDs and family cards for the residents of the area for several years.

In March 2018, the Ministry of Interior of the Syrian Salvation Government announced, through the Deputy Minister of Interior for Civil Affairs, that “it is close to granting family cards to residents of the liberated areas from the civil registry offices,” through its Facebook page, in a post in which it attached a video recording from inside the Civil Affairs Directorate in Idlib.

In the same month, more than three years ago, the directorate announced “the start of issuing family cards to citizens (lost, damaged, the first time),” after publishing a previous announcement in which it called on those who did not receive their personal cards “to take the initiative to receive them, in the building of the Directorate of Affairs. The city of Idlib,” noting that the handover includes “the cards that were presented to them before the city was liberated.”



Verify-Sy team also contacted more than three local and independent sources in Idlib to verify the claim, who confirmed that the claim of creating a “general civil registry” by the Turkey” is untrue, explaining that the civil registry In Idlib, it is affiliated with the Salvation Government, which in turn is affiliated with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.

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conclusion