Turkey a Haven for Asylum Seekers, Not Refugees

Turkey, like all post-imperial nation states, is de facto a country of immigrants and refugees. In this sense, the idea of a melting pot has brought together dozens of ethnicities, and despite its own structural problems not mentioned here, it has been largely successful. 

Turkey has had genius refugees such as King Charlemagne of Sweden and Einstein.  In settlements such as Yeni Bosna, Arnavutköy, Polenezköy, mass refugee histories are still alive.   

Syrian, Afghan, Libyan, Somali and Yemeni refugees can be easily encountered all over the country in the same order of frequency. But legally, there are no refugees in Turkey except Ukrainians.  Let us now touch upon a few historical and cultural aspects that will shed light on the refugee issue.

1- Religion is the Major Factor in the Refugee Problem 

Anatolia and Rumelia are geographically, but not politically, part of Europe. The reason why it cannot be part of Europe politically is religious differences, which, although not explicitly stated, are clearly reflected in actions and transactions. Although its religious commitment is diminishing every day, Christian Europe fears a Muslim Europe with a surprising bigotry.  

This is best observed in the field of refugees, and Syrian and Ukrainian refugees are the perfect test case. 

Certainly, when I was the Head of Refugees and Migrants, I observed that among the refugees from Iran, Iraq and Syria and their surroundings, the proportion of Christian and non-Muslim refugees resettled in Western countries was much higher than the proportion of Muslim refugees. Contrary to expectations, ethnic identity does not take precedence over religious identity.  

2- Migrant and Refugee Territories 

Undoubtedly, according to historical records, the first settlement and city of Anatolia and perhaps the world is Göbekli Tepe, dating back 11,600 years.  

In history, Anatolian lands have witnessed mass migrations from the West and the East, and many foreign statesmen or soldiers took refuge in our lands for political reasons. 

The first peoples of Anatolia and Rumelia were Akkadian, Gut, Assyrian, Thracian, Trojan, Trojan, Hatti, Assyrian, Luwian, Hittite, Pala, Kashka, followed by Ionian, Lydian and Phrygian peoples on the western side of Anatolia, and Urartian, Cimmerian and Scythian peoples in the northeast. The Persian Kingdom and then Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, took center stage. 

Rome and Byzantium, the Caliphate and the Oghuz Turks, the Seljuks, the Mongols, Timur and the Ottomans are clear evidence that the region has always been a route for migrants and refugees. 

This region has undoubtedly been a land of migrants and refugees and melted into the Turkish melting pot. The US idea of a melting pot has prevailed in Turkey for millennia. 

3- Refugee and Immigrant Movement in the Republican Era

The first major influx of forced refugees into Turkey was 800 years ago with Muslim peoples such as Sogdians, Tajiks, Oghuz and Khazars fleeing Mongol persecution. Armenian historians called the arrival of these peoples a thousand years ago the return of the Scythians. 

Undoubtedly, in the last 323 years, since Russia first landed in the northern Black Sea, refugees have been arriving in Turkey from Ukraine, Crimea, the Caucasus and the Balkans. In the last 50 years of the Ottoman Empire, millions of refugees seeking freedom of life, property and faith sought refuge in what is now Turkey, especially from the north of the Black Sea (Crimea), the west (Balkans), the east (Caucasus) and the numerous islands in the Sea of Islands. 

This influx of forced refugees continued with the Republic:  500,000 refugees from Greece between 1923-1930, 270,000 from Macedonia (1924-1936-1953), 800,000 from Bulgaria (1925-1949-1968-1989) in four phases, 123,000 from Romania (1923-1949), 23,000 from other Balkan countries and nearly a thousand refugees from Ahıska. In the 1990s, refugees from Bosnia and Kosovo also exceeded tens of thousands. While Soviet oppression during World War II and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s played a major role in the refuge of Turkish origin in Turkey, hundreds of thousands of refugees are now fleeing the Taliban regime.   

After the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, nearly a million Azeri Turks, Persians and Kurds fled Iran to Turkey. 

In 1988, 60,000 Kurds fled to Turkey after the Halabja massacre and 500,000 after the invasion of Iraq in 1991.  

 In the last decade, Syrian refugees have turned all statistics upside down. According to UNHCR records, Turkey continues to host the largest number of refugees in the world. Turkey hosts 4 million people, the vast majority of whom are registered Syrian refugees.   

4- There are only 150,000 refugees in Turkey and they are all Ukrainians

Despite its de facto status as a country of refugees and migrants, Turkey did not legally have any refugees until yesterday, or only a handful of refugees.  

This is because Turkey was a party to the 1951 Geneva Convention and the 1967 New York Protocol, but with one condition:  

Turkey had made a "Geographical Reservation", according to which the only way to become a refugee in Turkey was to come from the European continent. This situation has not changed in the legal and sub-regulations made in the last decade. 

You cannot be a refugee in Turkey even if you come not only from Asia and Africa, but also from the Americas, Oceania and even the polar continents.  Thus, until the arrival of Ukrainian refugees this year (2022), there were legally no refugees in Turkey. 

Historically, there have been millions of refugees from the Balkans (former Yugoslavia-Greece) and the Sea of Islands (Crete etc.) and Eastern Europe (Bulgaria-Crimea-Caucasus) who came as a result of persecution and oppression, but they were naturalized in a short time. 

Those from Iran and Iraq could not have been refugees in the first place, and most of them used Turkey as an intermediate ground and either returned to their countries thinking that the persecution and oppression had ceased or sought asylum in Western countries. 

Those who were granted refugee status were usually individual refugees from the USSR and satellite countries of the "Cold War" era, athletes who jumped into the waters of the Bosphorus while crossing the strait by ship and sought refuge in Turkey. 

Now the refugees come from Ukraine, historically the country of "Dest-i Kipchak" and today the country of "Kozaks" as its people call them. Turkey will not face the refugee problem until Europe goes to war within itself. But there will always be a refugee problem. 

5- Turkey: The Country Hosting the Most Asylum Seekers in the World 

"Turkey continues to host the largest number of refugees in the world, with around 3.6 million registered Syrian refugees, as well as some 320,000 persons of other nationalities of concern to UNHCR".    

One may now ask: "How can Turkey be called the world's largest refugee hosting country at the end of 2021, even according to official figures?"  The answer is simple: Asylum-seekers are called refugees based on the de facto situation as opposed to the legal situation. 

A more explanatory answer should be sought in the desire to legally complete the de facto permanent status of asylum-seekers under temporary protection who have been staying in Turkey for decades. 

The perception is based on refugee status. 

Especially for asylum seekers of Syrian origin. 

However, even if there are tens of millions of them and they stay for decades, their international status can never be called refugees. 

But de facto they are refugees. 

Turkey, which put burden-sharing on the table ten years ago, is not putting it on the table now. It has financed external developments with simultaneous internal changes. But this is no longer enough. 

Five to ten million refugees would shake not only Turkey, but even the EU countries. 

On the other hand, Turkey has de facto become a refugee haven, especially for Syrians, as there has been little or no resettlement to third countries and very little resettlement of non-Syrian asylum-seekers, while Turkey should have been a temporary accommodation for refugees who came to Turkey due to events outside Europe by maintaining the geographical limitation. 

In this context, 4 million asylum seekers are announced by national and international authorities, nearly 10 million Syrians are said to be being cared for, and according to some politicians (allegedly based on Ministry of Interior and intelligence records) 13 million refugees, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. According to the minimum and maximum figures, this is far above international averages. 

In other words, the problem is either big or very big. 

6- UN Refugee Organization and Turkey Offices: Authority and Effectiveness

UNHCR was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1950 with the mandate to lead and coordinate the international response to protect refugees and find solutions to their problems. 

Its establishment in Turkey followed two extraordinary periods: One was the May 27, 1960 Revolution and the other was the July 15, 2016 Coup Attempt.

As a matter of fact, this is clearly declared on its website: "Since 1960, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has worked closely with Turkey on asylum and refugee issues. On 1 September 2016, Turkey and UNHCR signed the Host Country Agreement, which formalizes and consolidates the existing cooperation. UNHCR's Turkey operation is one of the largest in the world, with headquarters in Ankara and field presence in Istanbul, Izmir, Gaziantep, Hatay, Şanlıurfa and Van. "

If we elaborate a little more on the subject, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), whose existence was hastily and hastily authorized by Alpaslan Türkeş, who was the Undersecretary of the Prime Ministry for a very short period of time after the 27 May 1960 revolution, established its premises as a station chief in Rome. This semi-official situation continued for many years and shortly after 15 July 2016, following another coup attempt, legal cooperation with the UNHCR was made direct and legislation-based. 

Thus, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Migration Management Agency have emerged as the largest institutions for resettlement to third countries. 

While the number of migrants (asylum seekers) entering Turkey averaged 70,000 per year between 2000 and 2008, only 18,764 people were resettled to third countries by UNHCR between 2000 and 2008.  This corresponds to a rate of 3 per thousand, which, while significant individually, is negligible in the aggregate. 

Today, the UN Refugee Agency does not resettle any Syrians due to Turkey's reluctance. 

Past experience is not good either. The UNHCR and the Migration Management should and must work hard on this issue.

7- CONCLUSION:

In the context of international law, Turkey is probably one of the few countries that did not have any refugees until the invasion of Ukraine. And yet, in practice, Turkey has the highest number of refugees in the world. The refugees, whose numbers today range from 4 million to 13 million, are in fact asylum seekers and "refugee candidates" who are expected to be resettled in third countries.

"As a transit country in the international migration arena, Turkey is a country that fulfills different expectations in terms of destination country, source country and refugees. As the source of various definitions shaped by certain expectations such as "buffer zone", "suitcase country" and "warehouse country" for the destination country, "transit country" that provides passage to forced migration for refugees, "waiting room" for those waiting to be resettled in a third country (Danış, 2007), "interim period" (Ateş, 2011), Turkey's undeniable aspect for refugees is its role in the journey of hope." 

In the case of Syrian refugees, Turkey is now the destination country with a decade of experience. 

Turkey is no longer a "buffer zone", a "luggage country", a "warehouse country" and a "transit country" for them, nor is it a "waiting room" or an "interim period" for those waiting to be resettled in a third country.  In fact, neither Turkey nor the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has requested resettlement to a third country. 

Tens of millions of Turkish citizens have taken care of Syrian refugees for more than ten years. 

Finally: "The EU has turned Turkey, which is a transit country on the East-West migration route due to its geographical location, into a country of last stay, where migrants cannot transit as a result of its "closed door" policy to protect its own society. The EU's new role for Turkey also makes it clear that Turkey can no longer be a member of the EU. Stopping the migration wave in Turkey has become a security issue for the EU. In a country with a very large number of foreigners, around 10% of its population, issues need to be discussed rationally." 

Instead of looking the other way, Turkey should move forward by carefully and simultaneously implementing all three alternatives. 

1- The refugees in Turkey should be resettled in third countries in effective cooperation with the UN Refugee Organization. 

2- A safe zone should be established by reaching an agreement with the Syrian government and these refugees should be sent back to their homeland. 

3- The remaining refugees should be effectively integrated and made a part of this homeland. 

The question of why the migration triggered by the Syrian civil war was directed to Turkey and not to neighboring Arab countries, which are linguistic and cultural partners, contains an answer.  However, positive segregation in university placements, which are distributed not on the basis of achievement but like a handout (positive segregation), especially due to their status from the same school, is capable of disrupting the security of the country on its own. 

No one can answer the question, "Why is Syria, who is less successful than me, studying medicine, engineering or law, while I can barely make it through a 4-year school?" 

Equal and separate did not work even in the US. It will never work in this country, which will make its own citizens feel strange and orphaned. 

The source of hatred is inequality and discrimination. You have to be smart not to allow this. 

Footnotes:

Fakılı, şakir (2021). Göçmenler, Sığınmacılar, İlticacılar: Türkiye’nin 1951 Cenevre Mülteci Sözleşmesine Koyduğu Rezerv Ne Anlama Geliyordu? https://apm.org.tr/2021/01/21/gocmenler-siginmacilar-ilticacilar-turkiyenin-1951-cenevre-multeci-sozlesmesine-koydugu-rezerv-ne-anlama-geliyordu/

Sayılara ilişkin verilen en az sayılar olarak alınmalıdır. Kendi Türkiyeye sığınan insan sayısı çok daha fazladır.Bkz: Ercoşkun,  Burak  (2015).  Suriyeli Mültecilerin Türkiye’ye Sosyokültürel ve Sosyoekonomik Etkiler,  Yeniyüzyıl Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararası İlişkiler ABD Yüksek Lisans Tezi, İstanbul. https://acikbilim.yok.gov.tr/bitstream/handle/20.500.12812/702237/yokAcikBilim_10076199.pdf?sequence=-1&isAllowed=y

https://www.unhcr.org/tr/en/refugees-and-asylum-seekers-in-turkey (Erişim Tarihi: 03 Ağustos 22)

https://www.unhcr.org/tr/turkiyede-unhcr (Erişim Tarihi: 04 Eylül.2022)

https://www.unhcr.org/tr/turkiyede-unhcr (Erişim Tarihi: 04 Eylül.2022)

Ercoşkun,  Burak  (2015).  Suriyeli Mültecilerin Türkiye’ye Sosyokültürel ve Sosyoekonomik Etkiler,  Yeniyüzyıl Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararası İlişkiler ABD Yüksek Lisans Tezi, İstanbul.  https://acikbilim.yok.gov.tr/bitstream/handle/20.500.12812/702237/yokAcikBilim_10076199.pdf?sequence=-1&isAllowed=y

Altıntaş, Safiye (2014). Davetsiz Misafirler: Türkiye’deki Mültecilerin Maduniyet Görünümleri, İdealKent: Sayı 14, Ekim 2014, ss. 252-276 ISSN: 1307-9905

Özel, Sibel (2022).  Marmara Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi / Milletlerarası Özel Hukuk Anabilim Dalı Başkanı  https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/turkiye/turkiyedeki-demografik-donusum-gelenler-1899199 (Erişim Tarihi: 04 Eylül.2022)

Özbek,  AV. Hüseyin (2022). Eski TBB Başkan Yardımcısı https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/turkiye/turkiyedeki-demografik-donusum-gelenler-1899199 (Erişim Tarihi: 04 Eylül.2022)