Return
of refugees raises Turkish suspicions
Many
Turks believe the ruling party is housing refugees in towns that vote
for its rivals.
By ALEV SCOTT
4/6/16, 5:32 AM CET
DIKILI, Turkey —
Days before the first migrants were to be deported from Greece,
residents of this coastal resort protested against rumored plans to
build a holding camp on the outskirts of the town, a stronghold of
Turkey’s main opposition party.
If the rumors were
true, Ankara paid attention to the protests. The first group of
deportees — 202 of them — disembarked from Greek ferries in the
tiny port on Monday and locals watched as they were put on buses to
be transported to Kirklaleri, a town near the Bulgarian border, 450
kilometers away.
This came as a great
relief for the town of 17,000 people and its mayor, a member of the
Republic People’s Party (CHP), whose representatives often complain
of being ignored or kept in the dark on major decisions by the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan.
Dikili’s small
rebellion underlines the skepticism of many Turks about Erdoğan’s
pact with the EU to take in more refugees on top of the 2.7 million
Syrians already registered in the country.
In Dikili, residents
are convinced that the AKP government’s rumored plan to send them
migrants from Europe was punishment for always voting for the
opposition.
Mustafa Tosun, the
town’s mayor, said Dikili was never officially designated to host
refugees being returned to Turkey from Greece as part of an EU
agreement that aims to curb the flow of migrants into Europe.
“I was never
informed by the migration board [of their plans]. But we heard
rumors, of course, and local business owners from the area got
together to decide what to do,” Tosun said.
“We held a press
conference to announce our objections,” he said, adding that people
feared an influx of refugees would keep the tourists away, decimating
Dikili’s main source of income.
Located in the Izmir
region on Turkey’s Aegean coast, this staunchly secular town is not
hiding its political sympathies: A large, bronze statue of General
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on horseback stands in the main square and his
portrait graces every café and restaurant, where alcohol is freely
sold and consumed.
“Why don’t they
send the refugees to Konya?” said Özlem Tavukçuoğlu, a waitress
in the popular Perla hotel near the beach, referring to the
conservative town in Anatolia with strong support for the ruling
party.
The first group of
deportees was taken to Kirklaleri, another CHP stronghold in a
traditionally secular area near Edirne, west of Istanbul, further
deepening the opposition’s suspicions about being targeted.
Tavukçuoğlu said she suspects the move is part of the government’s
plan to populate opposition towns with refugees in order to change
how people vote in the next municipal elections.
There are no
official plans to grant citizenship to refugees, but Tavukçuoğlu’s
theory is a common one.
“They want to hide
these refugees away from media cameras so journalists can’t see
them,” said Ali Burhan, a pensioner playing tennis near the Dikili
seafront. “God help these refugees, they are really desperate. But
how can we be expected to look after them all?”
Patriotic duty
For Erdoğan, taking
in refugees, especially those Europe has rejected, is a matter of
national pride for Turks. As migrants were landing in Dikili, Erdoğan
struck a defiant tone in Ankara, lashing out at the EU for throwing
out people in need.
“We didn’t turn
our brothers from Syria away. But they hemmed these people in with
razor wire,” Erdoğan said.
He devoted the
greater part of Monday’s speech, however, to dismissing any
possibility of negotiations with outlawed militant group the PKK,
currently fighting against Turkish troops in the southeast of the
country. The Kurdish group has also been linked to the recent suicide
bombings in Ankara.
The renewed conflict
with the Kurds is a pressing issue for the ruling party and the
opposition. However, Turkish cities with a large refugee population
and towns earmarked by the government to receive Syrians in the
future fear that terrorists will move in along with refugee families.
Following reports
that a camp for 27,000 Syrian refugees will be built in the town of
Maraş, another opposition stronghold in southern Turkey, protests
broke out.
“Our objection is
not against refugees,” said Salman Akdeniz, the head of the Maraş
branch of the Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Association. “We are just
concerned about the designation of the camps and the fact that jihadi
groups from ISIL and al-Nusra may come here and involve us in the
Syrian civil war.”
‘Take the refugees
and be quiet’
Turkey last month
agreed to take back any illegal migrant arriving in Greece after
March 20 in exchange for speeded-up visa liberalization for Turkish
citizens traveling to the EU and progress on the country’s EU
accession talks.
Süleyman Elma, a
real-estate agent and part-time taxi driver in Dikili , was not
convinced that Turkey will receive anything meaningful in exchange
for taking the refugees. He said Europe was paying Ankara to “take
the refugees and be quiet.”
Even the suggestion
that Turks could be traveling without a visa to Europe as early as
June was not enough. Besides, Elma said, “we should have visa-free
travel anyway. These promises are irrelevant, if they are ever
realized at all.”
Many critics of the
AKP claim that the promise of visa-free travel is more of a domestic
political coup for the AKP than a realistic possibility. Last month,
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu called it “a 50, 60-year-old
dream.”
Turkey’s Prime
Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, with President of the European Council,
Donald Tusk and President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude
Juncker | Carl Court/Getty Images
Sinan Ulgen, a
visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe and chairman of Istanbul-based
think tank Edam, said the visa provision is the most vulnerable part
of the deal as neither Europe nor Turkey seem to be able to fulfill
the necessary conditions.
“On the Turkish
side, much more is still needed for the country to fully comply with
the 72 technical criteria set by the EU [for lifting visa
requirements],” Ulgen said.
“As a result, a
new crisis can emerge in June when the decision is due,” Ulgen
said.
Human rights
organizations have harshly criticized the migration deal, saying it
violates international law. Although Turkey signed the 1951 Geneva
Convention on refugee rights, it does not extend these rights to
non-European refugees.
Ulgen said Turkey
will not budge on this, especially since it has taken in 2.7 million
Syrians since the war started five years ago.
“There is no
benefit for a country that borders the Middle East and is exposed to
the ongoing instability of this region to lift its geographical
limitation,” Ulgen said. “Europe has not really demonstrated a
willingness to do more in terms of burden sharing with Turkey, at
least not until refugees started to find their way to Europe.”
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