Turkey as EU partner in the refugee crisis

by Günter Seufert : The critical question is not whether Turkey is able to control larger-scale migration movements, but whether it is prepared to do so in the medium and long term.

Rarely has a resolution by the European Union heads of state and government been criticised from such diverse perspectives and positions of vested interest as the EU’s agreements with the Turkish government of 29th November 2015 regarding the alleviation of the refugee crisis. Eastern European states, human rights organisations, a European public critical of Turkey and Turkish intellectuals are united in their skeptical rejection of Brussels’ policies. They take the view that the EU’s financial and political concessions to Turkey have overstepped the mark. By contrast, the situation in Turkey has barely played any part in the discussion to date. Little interest has been shown in the financial means at Turkey’s disposal in order to fulfil these tasks, in the political cost which would arise for the government as a result of steps taken in the abovementioned direction and in the major upheaval in Turkish asylum and aliens policy which is inevitably associated with the agreements. Also lacking is speculation on why Turkey is prepared to cooperate with the European Union at all, how it could have been persuaded to participate in such a collaboration initially and on which mutual objectives and interests a cooperation of this nature could be based.

“Approximately 1.5 million people entered the EU illegally in 2015. The majority of these via Turkey.” With these words, spoken during the meeting with Ankara, the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, outlined not only the extent of the refugee crisis and the central role played in it by Turkey, but also the primary concern of the gathering. It was, and continues to be a matter of the regaining of control over the external European border in the Aegean, which was lost during the influx of over 150,000 non-registered entries to Greece in September 2015 alone. In the interests of the internal peace, security and cohesion of the European Union, immigration must be controllable and the identity of entrants determinable. Furthermore, policy development as regards the refugee question will only be possible if state bodies are not deprived of the opportunity to decide which groups of migrants are accepted. Experiences with previous refugee movements from North Africa to Spain and Italy and those from Albania to Italy have shown that, in the case of large-scale migrations, the control of maritime borders is only possible in cooperation with the states on the opposite coastline. In the case of the Aegean, this is Turkey. All other proposals pitched into the debate add nothing to the achievement of this first, short-term goal; neither the “equitable” distribution of refugees across Europe, nor the increased sup-port of initial host countries of Syrian refugees such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey; neither the fight against people smugglers nor the extension of the list of “safe countries of origin”. That Turkey is, notwithstanding the frequently expressed contrary view, quite capable of limiting irregular migration from its coastlines became evident just two days after the meeting, when the Turkish coastguard service prevented the passage of approximately 1,500 individuals. As a result, the critical question is not whether Turkey is able to control larger-scale migration movements, but whether it is prepared to do so in the medium and long term. [...]

for access to the full article, please, use the link below

Farewell to the political instrumentalisation of refugees

“The EU finally got Turkey’s message and opened its purse strings. What did we say? ‘We’ll open our borders and unleash all the Syrian refugees on you’.” These were the comments of Burhan Kuzu, one of the chief advisers to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on the tentative agreement between the EU and Turkey of 29th November in Brussels. Two weeks previously, Erdoğan himself had not only accused the Europeans of “turning the Mediterranean into a cemetery”, but also threateningly posed the question: “What would happen if 2.2 million refugees all march to Europe?” As early as 7th September, shortly before large numbers of refugees started transiting from the Turkish Aegean coast to the Greek islands, the editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Yeni Şafak, the semi-official party organ of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), sent an initial warning to the EU. His commentary was entitled: “Open the gates for millions to flock to Europe!” It included the words: “A great march to Europe should begin, from Anatolia, from the coasts of the Mediterranean, ... from Afghanistan and Syria, from Mesopotamia and North Africa, ... to the capitals of Europe ...” Although the editor-in-chief has a reputation as a zealot with a tendency to overstep the mark, this is not the first time that the Turkish government has politically instrumentalised the refugee crisis.The generous acceptance of Syrian refugees was not only carried out on humanitarian grounds, but also on the basis of political considerations. In September 2012, Erdoğan expressed his hope that he would shortly be able to perform the ritual prayer in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.Ankara was banking on the rebels’ rapid victory and the subsequent end of the war. At political level, the active support of the Sunni opposition and, at population level, the generous acceptance of refugees was designed to ensure that Turkey would be-come a defining power in the new Syria after the war’s end.

Not only did Turkey keep the border open for refugees, but also for Syrian and international fighters. As the Turkish commentator Murat Yetkin stated so aptly on 15 January 2015, the open border policy was also part of Turkey’s strategy to accelerate the fall of Assad. International pressure to step up border controls and prevent the transfer of jihadist fighters from all over the world was countered with references to the refugees’ plight from figures including Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu on 10th January 2015 in Berlin, just three days after the Paris attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.The fact that Turkey was reluctant to seek international support, instead shaping its refugee policy alone and in embarrassing isolation, does spark suspicion that the refugee camps and their surroundings were used as places of retreat and regeneration for rebels. Thus, in initial years, Turkey denied even Turkish NGOs and the UNHCR access to the camps, and was not prepared to fulfil minimum standards of transparency customary in the field of international refugee cooperation. For a time, the refugees were treated in accordance with decree 62/2015, which has never been published and the contents of which were not even disclosed to the members of parliament. In 2012, Metin Corabatir, at that time Turkey’s UNHCR spokesperson, also pushed for the relocation of refugee camps close to the border, this in order to exclude their military use.Moreover, the Turkish government has used the high number of refugees in order to justify and reinforce its call for the imposition of a no-fly zone in order to weaken the Syrian air force and to support the rebels, reiterated repeatedly since 2012. Prime Minister Davutoğlu made a final thrust in this direction as the refugee movements in the Aegean reached their height. On 27th September, he proposed the cleansing of a strip of land approximately 80 kilometres in length west of the Euphrates in Northern Syria of “Islamic State” troops. He suggested that the area should be declared a secure zone, in which Turkey could, using European funding, create three refugee cities, each with the capacity to house 100,000 individuals. According to Davutoğlu, the refugee movements in the Aegean have helped Europe to realise Turkey’s major contribution to date, and the essential role it plays in the management of the refugee crisis. In recent years, the Turkish government has attempted to compare its strategy in the Syrian Civil War with the interests of the refugees so frequently that even Turkish commentators were on the verge of concluding that it was about to gamble away the moral superiority gained by its acceptance of the refugees.[...]

for access to the full article, please, use the link below

"Turkey as Partner of the EU in the Refugee Crisis, Ankara’s Problems and Interests", in the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik/ German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Comments 1, January 2016