Editor-in-Chief Celine Park analyzes the government policy in Turkey on the topic of the Syrian refugee crisis.
By Celine Park Credit The Myriad News
“Our country will recover and our citizens will enjoy peace, stability and sovereignty.”
—Bashar al-Assad
The Syrian Civil War spans almost a decade long
In hisinfamous televised 70-minute speech, President of Syria Bashar al-Assad firmly promised conflicts arising from the 2011 Arab Spring revolts would soon come to a close. Most Syrians—and the international community for that matter—desperately believed his words.
Now in 2020, almost an entire decade later, the Syrian Civil War is ongoing, having caused almost 400,000 deaths, 8,000 documented killings of children under 18, the obliteration of dozens of Syrian cities and the rise of the growing power of terrorist organizations such as ISIS and Hezbollah.
One of the most lasting effects of the conflict, however, is the internal displacement of 6.6 million Syrians and 5.6 million Syrian refugees, making the civil war responsible for one of the largest forced migrations of people in the world, resulting in major demographic shifts all across the Middle East and Europe.
Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan have hosted the largest number of Syrian refugees, respectively. Many refugees who seek economic opportunities and a new life in Europe perceive Turkey as an optimal passageway to get to Greece (and by extension, the European Union). Refugees who want to stay close to home, hoping the war will end soon, mostly choose to seek asylum in countries closer in proximity and that have similar cultural values, such as Lebanon and Jordan.
Turkey has a long history of hosting refugees as a result of Middle Eastern conflicts (e.g. Turkey during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War). Regardless, from the onset of the Syrian Civil War, both countries received incoming refugees with somewhat open arms, but as the years progressed, the country became more resistant to accepting new waves of refugees and creating effective, long-lasting government policies that ensure Syrians their safety and basic human rights.
Turkey, which opposes the Assad regime, adjusts its stance on accommodating Syrian refugees depending on domestic party politics as well as its desire to join the European Union; needless to say, while Turkey is lauded for providing a safe haven for refugees, it is also criticized for not enacting long-term policy solutions, ultimately reflecting the inherent reluctance to fully integrate Syrian refugees into their societies.
Syrian refugees are discriminated in Turkey
Within Turkey’s domestic political realm, the Syrian refugee crisis is seen as one of the most pressing topics of concern. The Justice and Development (AKP) Party, founded by incumbent President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, spearheaded an “open door” policy—an initial hospitality—towards the refugee crisis.
Being Turkey’s largest party, the AKP is extremely influential when it comes to translating its socially conservative, pro-Sunni Arab rhetoric into domestic policies. Assad himself being an Alawite, a branch of Shia Islam coupled with Turkey’s opposition against Syria in the Syrian Civil War, gave cause to the AKP for taking in refugees.
However, this policy has caused many opposition parties, such as the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), to accuse the AKP to be Islamist, viewing the permanence of millions of overwhelmingly Sunni Arab Syrian refugees as a plot to change the electoral demographics in certain Turkish regions that do not have a population with a Sunni Arab majority.
Because most Syrians seeking political asylum come from the northwestern regions of Syria that border Turkey such as Idlib, Aleppo, Raqqa, Latakia and Hassakeh, ethnic and sectarian friction between Turkish minorities (mainly Kurds) and incoming refugees are most prevalent in southeastern Turkish border-communities, the most affected cities being Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Kilis and Hatay.
In Kilis, for example, by 2016 Turkish citizens had become a demographic minority, with 120,000 Syrian refugees outnumbering 90,000 locals. The Syrian refugee crisis became such a heated topic of concern within the Turkish regional political realm that government officials, at first, did not want help from foreign international agencies such as the UNHCR, however this stance changes in the upcoming years.
Turkey has enacted some policy on the refugee crisis
Despite these accusatory claims from opposition parties, the AKP in the first years of the Syrian conflict enacted governmental policies regarding the disposition of refugees that were aligned with international precedents. To develop the country’s first domestic policy regarding a new legal framework for Syrian refugees, Turkey’s Directorate General of Migration Management initiated the development of the Law on Foreigners and International Protection (LFIP) as early as 2013, and this policy went into effect only a year later.
Turkey, a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Conference, was already bound to practicing non-refoulement under international law, but enacting this principle with a legitimate, domestic policy emphasizes Turkey’s initial willingness to cooperate with the large influx of Syrian refugees, as well as providing them with protection and safety within Turkey’s borders.
Turkey desperately wanted to join the European Union
In addition to domestic politics playing a major role in Turkey’s initial stance on the incoming Syrian refugees, the more underlying driving stance in creating beneficial policies for refugees was due to Turkey’s deep-rooted determination to join the European Union. Since the creation of the EU, Turkey has shown its desire to be a part of the union, arguing that it shares an intertwined history with Europe.
Turkey’s desire is understandable; if Turkey were to join the EU, it would receive many advantages, such as greater economic stability, free movement of peoples in all European Union states, a higher standard of living for Turkish citizens and perhaps in the AKP’s point of view, a shift towards a greater open-mindedness of Islam not just within the EU states, but in Europe as a whole.
By the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, Turkey was already a candidate country to the EU. In order for Turkey to be officially admitted into the union, it had to abide by the Copenhagen Criteria, which delineates that countries are only eligible to join the EU if they have a functioning market economy, and more importantly, if they maintain a “stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities”.
Although Turkey struggled to adhere to Western democratic values, the country has used the Syrian refugee crisis as an attempt to display itself in front of the international community in the most democratic light that it can.
Despite LFIP being Turkey’s only bona-fide government policy for mitigating the Syrian refugee crisis as of 2014, international entities such as the EU and UNHCR heavily praised the legislation as a huge step forward to protecting Syrian refugees’ basic human rights.
Specifically, LFIP included a “Temporary Protection Regulation” (TPR) program, which outlines the status of Syrian refugees (registered or unregistered), the particular benefits they receive and how refugees can apply to register to receive a TP identification card. Benefits provided to registered Syrian refugees such as free social services, healthcare, psychological support and education, have indeed followed the standard of respecting minorities and their human rights.
Turkey does not provide Syrian refugees refugee status
However, there is nuance to this. The 1951 Conference only classifies migrants coming from Europe as refugees. Although Turkey also signed the 1967 Refugee Protocol, which nullifies these “geographical limitations”, Turkey uses various “grandfather clauses” that chain Syrians back to the rulings of the 1951 Refugee Conference.
This then classifies Syrians staying in Turkey not as refugees, but rather being given “temporary protection”; however, Turkey did state that they would be willing to give Syrians full refugee status once the country is admitted into the EU.
Even though the EU heralds the notion of protecting minorities, after over half a million Syrian refugees made their way to Europe, the union became refugee-weary, and ultimately attempted to find solutions to “sharing the burden” of the incoming migrants. In 2015, the EU and Turkey signed the EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan.
Essentially, Turkey would stem the flow of Syrian refugees illegally migrating to Europe by tightening border control in exchange for the EU financially supporting Turkey by providing the country 3 billion euros. Additionally, Turkey’s responsibilities also included the continuation of policies and implementations to facilitate Syrian refugees during their “temporary stay” in the country. In 2012, Turkey announced that it would not be able to handle the arrival of more than 100,000 Syrian refugees.
However, by the time the Joint Action Plan commenced there were already almost 2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. If it were not for the EU’s continued support and outward appreciation for Turkey’s willingness to solve the “refugee problem”, Turkey most definitely would not have taken in millions of refugees in the first place.
Turkey’s “revolving-door policy” works against refugees
Starting from 2015, however, Turkey began to shift its open-door policy to that of a “revolving-door policy”, becoming more closed as the years progressed.
Between 2015 and 2016, Turkey experienced a string of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks. Most of the incidents were linked to either ISIS or registered Syrian refugees (and members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a terrorist organization to the Turkish government). This led to many Turkish citizens to further distrust Syrian refugees and accuse them of threatening national security.
The sudden increase in terrorist activity in Turkey left an impact on domestic politics; although communist Kurds executed some of the terrorist acts, in 2015 the Kurdish Democratic Party actually saw an increase in support, as a result of decrease in the AKP Party who once supported the influx of Syrian refugees.
By 2016, the Turkish government tightened border security between Turkey and Syria, reinstated the visa requirement for Syrian refugees, and by 2018 Turkey had completed an 825 kilometer-long wall on the Syrian-Turkish border (this being the third largest wall in the world, just behind the Great Wall of China and the U.S.-Mexico border wall).
Concurrently, Turkey’s adjusted stance on protecting Syrian refugees was a result of gradually soured EU-Turkey relations. By early 2016, the EU and Turkey cooperated with each other to create amendments to the Joint Action Plan (the EU-Turkey Statement), the most important revision made being the 1-to-1 clause, which outlined that the EU and Turkey would take in equal amounts of Syrian refugees.
This highly impractical and unpromising joint resolution soon caused distrust between the EU and Turkey, and this was further exacerbated when EU states did not uphold their part of the clause. The slow but clear deterioration of democratic values and attention to protecting basic human rights in Turkey as a result of Erdogan’s increased distrust for the EU received backlash from the EU itself, but also most of the international community.
Ultimately, Turkey’s admission into the EU seemed practically impossible when Erdogan himself said after a meeting with President of France Emmanuel Macron that Turkey is “tired” of the EU’s procrastination of rewarding Turkey union membership, adding that by now the majority of Turkish citizens “did not want the EU anymore.”
Turkey deports Syrian refugees to dangerous “safe-zones”
In the last two to three years, Turkey has expressed its fatigue in keeping Syrian refugees within its borders and has resulted in forced deportations of refugees to safe zones. As a result of the EU and Turkey’s failed quid-pro-quo bargaining relationship, Turkey has resorted to repatriate its Syrian refugees back to regions in northwestern Syria where Turkey and Russia will build “safe-zones”.
In a speech to a United Nations General Assembly last year, Erdogan announced his plan of constructing complete cities within these zones after clearing out Syrian-Kurdish YPG fighters occupying those areas. Claiming that the repatriation of Syrian refugees is “self-voluntary”, Turkey has deported over 130,000 persons from 2016 to 2018 alone, and this number is expected to increase with the creation of the safe zones.
However, in stark reality, the term “safe-zone” is a euphemism, and the validity of voluntary returns has raised many questions amongst the international community; thousands of Syrians, especially in urban areas such as Istanbul, are being forced to sign deportation papers after being harassed and beaten, despite having kimlik papers to protect themselves with. Human Rights Watch has condemned Turkey’s efforts of deportation, which can also be seen as refoulement, which in turn means Turkey is actively violating international law.
To Turkey, the refugee crisis is now unimportant
With these contexts in mind, it is clear to say the Syrian refugee crisis, to Turkey, was more of a strategic political issue more than a humanitarian one. Once there was little reason to compromise with the European Union, coupled with the negligence to create long-lasting solutions for the refugee on a domestic-scale, the plight of Syrian refugees gradually lowered in the ranks of Turkey’s policy-making priorities.
https://www.themyriad.news/closing-the-door-an-analysis-on-the-syrian-refugee-crisis-in-turkey/