Syrian Border Demining and Afghan Refugees

Clearing Mined Land and Securing the Syrian Border

At the end of the first decade of the 2000s, the issues of "legal regulation and geographical reservation" for refugees and asylum seekers, "demining the Syrian border and resettlement of Afghan refugees", "EU and readmission agreements", which are very important for Turkey in the perspective of Turkey's EU membership, were on my personal agenda more than the national agenda. Because these areas were virgin and our national interests needed protection.

In this article, I will talk about the innovative solution found ten or twelve years ago to the Syrian issue, which is currently one of Turkey's biggest security problems. The title of this article will be "Demining the Syrian border and resettlement of Afghan refugees":

Syrian Border Demining and Afghan Refugees

Between 2008 and 2011, when I was working on refugees and migrants, Palestinian refugees were the largest number of refugees in the world, with Afghan refugees taking the second place. Both were around 5-6 million. Iraqi, Iranian and African refugees followed.

There were no Ukrainian, Venezuelan or Syrian refugees yet.

Today, I know that the Western world has a humanitarian refugee approach on an individual basis, but I cannot say that on a state level.

The West develops an attractive-positive perspective on immigrants and refugees as a solution to its aging population and lack of labor force, and approaches the issue as a repulsive-negative element by putting the biggest cultural and religious reservations in terms of security.

Let's talk about how Syrian refugees and Afghan refugees could intersect and turn into a win-win situation!

The same years again. 24 hours a day, refugees and human rights.

But never ignoring the interests of our country.

The Ottawa Convention entered into force on March 1, 1999. 164 countries, including Turkey, which signed it in 2003 and put it into force in 2004, became parties, while 32 countries, including the USA, China, Russia, Israel, Iran and Syria, did not sign the convention. According to this convention, the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines must be banned and destroyed. According to the roadmap, the first four years of the roadmap would be spent completely destroying stored mines and the first 10 years of the roadmap would be spent completely destroying mines under the ground.

Although Turkey has smaller mines on its borders with Iran, Iraq and Armenia,[i] suddenly the issue of clearing the mines on the Syrian border is on the agenda.

I attributed this to good relations at a time when visas were lifted and the hellish heat of the Arab Spring was absent.

However, even though I was not assigned any task, I immediately prepared a report on the subject. I evaluated whether refugees, who are a cure for the aging population in the West, would be a cure for us.

There was no indication of my Afghanistan assignment yet.

However, I knew that Afghan refugees were mostly of Turkish origin[ii]. These people had sought asylum in countries such as Pakistan, Iran and Turkey because they were no longer safe because of their beliefs and ethnic origins, and were living under difficult conditions.

They were looking for a home to live their lives.

Over 200 million square meters of land[iii] along the Syrian border was to be cleared and three million Turkish-Tebar Afghan refugees were to be settled there for humanitarian reasons.

During the "minelaying" between 1955-59, since land up to 5 km deep in some parts and 20 km deep in others was expropriated on the grounds of military security, when the total calculation is made together with the area to be cleared, some say it is as much as two TRNC territories. According to more limited estimates, the area to be cleared is at least the size of Bolu province or twice the cultivated and planted land of Aydın province[iv]

As citizens of the New Republic, these people, who knew agriculture, animal husbandry, knew how to fight, and could even communicate with the people of the region in every way because they spoke Dari as well as Turkish, were to form a production and security corridor along the border.

According to the declarations, "45,000 square meters of immovable property in Kilis Elbeyli Çobanbey Station, 200,000 square meters in Mardin Nusaybin Customs Gate area, 7,715 square meters in Şanlıurfa Akçakale Customs Gate, 663,800 square meters in Gaziantep Karkamış Ancient City have been cleared of mines" and "the demined areas are the routes of refugees coming from Syria" [v].

In the past, the Israeli dimension of the issue has also been mentioned[vi]

Imagine 3-5 million Khorasan Turks along the Syrian border right now.

Would Turkey face any security problems along its border with Syria?

Would Turkey face any shortages in agricultural and livestock products?

Security and freedom are not opposed to each other.

Neither are humanity and security...

One always feeds the other.