Turkey tells Europe it is not a hotel for foreign citizens, only terrorists

Mustafa Kamel

Turkish officials are still following President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s instructions to make anti-refugee statements after opening the borders to Europe to send waves of refugees by sea. This has been met with strong condemnation from European Union countries, and the EU expressed its concern about the new wave of migration from Turkey following the influx of refugees at the borders with Greece and Bulgaria, in a clear refusal by Europeans to use refugees as either a political card in the elections or as a pressure card on European countries to reap personal gains for the benefit of the Turkish President and his ruling party.

Denial

“We do not force anyone to leave for Europe,” stated Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, claiming that his country has not asked anyone to leave its lands to seek asylum and that those who departed did so voluntarily of their desire. He added that the nationalities of asylum seekers who sought to go to Greece were 25% Syrians, while the rest are made of Afghans, Pakistanis and other nationalities. The minister denied that his country opened its doors for refugees to cross into Europe, while he previously announced that his country is not a hotel for citizens of other countries.

Soylu said on CNN Turk that there are 137,878 asylum seekers who left Turkey’s land borders towards European countries since last Thursday, most of them non-Syrians. He claimed the European Union and Greece are violating the EU’s immigration rules established under the Geneva Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

While European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen confirmed that the European Union is concerned with the flow of migrants from Turkey towards the bloc’s external borders in Greece, the Turkish president had another opinion, announcing at the end of February that his country would open its doors to refugees wishing to go to Europe. Erdogan claimed that Turkey has no capacity to absorb a new wave of immigration, and he took the decision after an hours-long security meeting with senior Turkish officials in Ankara not to prevent Syrian refugees from reaching Europe by either land or sea.

In the same way, the beginning of the repudiation and changing the tone against the refugees and Syrians was different from what it was before. In August 2019, Turkish authorities informed the refugees who were not registered with them of the need to return to the provinces where they registered before the end of August, in an attempt to alleviate pressure on the Istanbul. Refugees were given a temporary deadline allowing them to move from Istanbul to register in any other province, except for the southern city of Antalya, which he also said would not be able to accept more Syrian immigrants. Turkey has extended the deadline until the end of October 2019 for thousands of Syrian refugees, other than those registered in Istanbul, to leave or face deportation, as announced by Soylu. This is done forcing them to sign “voluntary” return forms that they cannot read or understand.

Preventing return

On the other hand, the Turkish authorities took military measures by deploying several security forces along the Turkish-Greek border to prevent refugees from returning to Turkey again. Nearly a thousand Turkish police were deployed on the borders with Greece on Thursday, March 5. This came after the Turkish interior minister visited the Turkish-Greek border area by helicopter to follow the movement of asylum seekers.

Syrian refugees recently suffered multiple attacks in a number of Turkish cities against the backdrop of the loss suffered by the Turkish army in Idlib, northwestern Syria. Hundreds of Turks marched in support of the Turkish army in the southern city of Kahramanmaraş, where they attacked Syrian homes, shops and refugees in the city.

Exploitation for benefit

In complete contrast to Turkey’s current policy of opening its doors for refugees to flow into Europe, Syrians were first used during the Turkish presidential election in June 2018 as a card to attract votes in favor of Erdogan after he naturalized thousands of Syrian refugees with the aim of having them participate in the election and winning their votes. Turkish police cars were even used to transport a number of Syrian refugees without Turkish citizenship to vote in the elections, according to the Turkish newspaper Zaman.

During the Turkish municipal elections in March 2019, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) showed its support for the Syrians, who were shipped to the electoral committees to vote for the AKP under threat of being transferred to their own lands. There were more than 4 million Syrians registered on the electoral lists.