{"id":27806,"date":"2015-09-17T16:32:36","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T16:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/?p=27806"},"modified":"2015-09-17T16:32:36","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T16:32:36","slug":"turkeys-evolving-refugee-problem-needs-a-clearer-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/turkeys-evolving-refugee-problem-needs-a-clearer-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s evolving refugee problem needs a clearer policy"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Syrian war, which is in its fifth year, has presented Europe with a refugee crisis of unprecedented scale.<\/p>\n
What is now becoming a nightmare for Europe has already been a trying ordeal in Turkey for years.<\/p>\n
Sheltering over two million Syrians and Iraqis in camps and cities, Turkey has the largest refugee population in the world. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says that since April 2011, 1.9 million Syrians were registered in Turkey.<\/p>\n
According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Turkey has already spent $6 billion for Syrian refugees and provided much needed protection but its resources are limited and its capacity to deal with such large numbers is running out.<\/p>\n
Deterioration of protection standards in the country, lack of legal status, limited opportunities for health and education along with increasing hostility from the local population are now driving Syrians towards making the difficult and often dangerous journey into Europe.<\/p>\n
If this mass movement of people, leaving the country of first asylum for a better life in Europe is seen as a somewhat welcome relief for Turkey, it should not surprise anybody. Like Syria\u2019s other neighbours Jordan and Lebanon, Turkey has been bearing the brunt. It has been consistently calling for better burden-sharing. Large numbers of desperate refugees in towns are creating weariness or even hostility in society and it is becoming an electoral liability for the government.<\/p>\n
Authorities that decided to withhold legal refugee status to Syrians and preferred to call them \u201cguests\u201d instead, are clearly keen to say farewell to some of them but the sudden and unpredicted pattern of their movement seems to have taken them by surprise.<\/p>\n
Confused and contradictory statements<\/a> from officials concerning hundreds of refugees who set up a camp on a main road at Edirne, near the border with Greece, point to potential pitfalls awaiting the Turkish government.<\/p>\n The governor of Edirne, Dursun Ali \u015eahin told the Turkish media that the refugees had three days to leave either for camps or their country of origin before he would resort to \u201cforcible measures\u201d.<\/p>\n