Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya spoke to the Sabah newspaper about Türkiye’s updated migration policy and the state of refugees from Syria amid reports that a large number of refugees “disappeared,” presumably using the Turkish route to reach Europe.
The minister said Türkiye stopped a migration wave from its southern neighbor Syria, which grapples with an ongoing conflict. “Seven million people live now in the secure zone we formed in Syria to prevent migration and against terrorism. (People) no longer cross into Türkiye. We stopped migration at its source,” he said.
Yerlikaya also answered questions about Syrian refugees who went missing in Türkiye and highlighted that they apparently left for Europe.
Since the early years of the civil war in Syria, Türkiye has held the title of the country with the highest number of refugees or people in temporary protection status from that country. Yerlikaya says Syrians make up 3.1 million among 4.4 million people registered as refugees and foreigners in the country. He said more than 1.1 million among them have residence permits and 224,000 have international protection status. He underlined that authorities recorded the addresses of all Syrians in the country and found 396,738 people either could not be found in the address they declared to authorities or failed to update their address after moving to another place. “We will give them one last chance. If they do not update their status, their entitlement to social support and public services will be suspended,” the minister warned. He said that those who had no record of activity (i.e., declaration of a place of residence) within the past five years in Türkiye would lose their status. “We sent messages to Syrians we could not find and gave them a 90-day deadline recently. (More than 330,000 people) responded so far,” he said. “This is the last warning, but they will not be turned down when they seek access to hospitals or schools. They will be required to update their addresses,” he stated.
Yerlikaya stated that data from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) shows 996,000 Syrians crossed into Europe within the past five years and those included people leaving from Türkiye. “We did not register new Syrians since June 2022. The situation would change if we admitted anyone jumping from the border wall,” he said. The minister noted that a safe zone formed in Syria with the aid of Türkiye (through counterterrorism operations that liberated Syria’s north from terrorist groups Daesh and PKK/YPG) and Syria’s border areas, including those in İdlib, is home to 7 million people. “We don’t allow anyone through our borders. We built a 911-kilometer wall and stopped the migration at its source,” he said.
The minister also denied allegations that Syrians born in Türkiye were not naturalized. He said only 238,733 Syrians were admitted to Turkish citizenship in the past 13 years and underlined that those people were mostly running businesses or contributing to the country’s workforce. Türkiye’s hosting of Syrian refugees fueled xenophobia perpetuated by far-right groups, including political parties. Reports of sexual abuse of a minor by a Syrian refugee triggered far-right riots in central Türkiye’s Kayseri in June and spread to other cities as well, with mobs torching Syrian-owned businesses and houses.
Yerlikaya also announced that they were planning to introduce IDs with embedded chips for people under temporary protection status to prevent ID forgery and a new plan to mandate fingerprint collection for people entering the country.
Voluntary returns
The minister also spoke about encouraging Syrian refugees to return to their homeland. He said 132,288 Syrians returned home in the past year and the total number of people who returned to Syria in the past five years is now 687,706.
In the country’s north, Ankara helped the Syrian opposition sustain moderate ground against regime forces while starting in 2016, Turkish counterterrorism operations Euphrates Shield, Olive Branch and Spring Shield liberated swathes of territory from terrorist groups like the PKK and its U.S.-backed Syrian branch, the YPG, and enabled the safe resettlement of civilians. Safer zones in the country house new schools, hospitals, industrial sites and better infrastructure.
Returns have also increased following the twin earthquakes that left over 56,000 dead combined in southern Türkiye and northern Syria.
Türkiye has already joined forces with Qatar to build some fully equipped 240,000 homes across Idlib and Afrin regions over the next three years. The joint “Voluntary, Safe, Honorable Return Project” broke ground in 2023 in Jarablus, a city belonging to Aleppo just south of the Turkish border.
Irregular migration
Along with refugees, Türkiye has seen an influx of irregular migrants, especially from Asia, in recent years.
In the past 20 years, the country has intercepted 2.6 million irregular migrants.
Situated at the intersection of Asia, Europe and Africa, the country has been a transit route for irregular migrants due to its role as a bridge between wealthy Western countries and underdeveloped countries with political and economic instabilities. This “transit” role, however, changed into a final destination in recent years as Türkiye grew into a rising power in the international community, especially for refugees from the Middle East.
Though the number varies over the years, Afghans and Syrians make up the bulk of intercepted irregular migrants. Between 2014 and 2017, Syrians topped the list of intercepted migrants ahead of Afghan nationals. Afghan migrants replaced them in the first place after 2018. Between January 2014 and July 11 of this year, 766,587 Afghan irregular migrants were intercepted, while this number was 476,574 for Syrians.
Yerlikaya said they heavily invested in border security. “We spent $950 million and will spend another $136 million this year,” he said, citing the costs of a 1,253-kilometer-long (778.57 miles-long) wall across the country’s borders, hundreds of “patrolling lanes” staffed by security forces along the blind spots of the border, thermal cameras and other technological instruments to watch the border. The Interior Ministry also introduced what it called mobile migration points recently for faster checks on undocumented foreigners. Yerlikaya said they had 268 mobile migration control vehicles and this number would be increased to 350. “We checked the IDs of more than 1.1 million people and detected 126,766 irregular migrants (through mobile points),” the minister stated.
He said their measures saved Türkiye 500 billion euros. “You spend 1,000 euros yearly per irregular migrant before she/he is sent back,” he underlined.
Yerlikaya also shot down claims that Türkiye was home to 2 million African migrants, something perpetuated by the chair of far-right Victory Party (ZP) chairperson Ümit Özdağ, who said in a social media post that it required a “complex operation” to send them back to their countries. “It is ridiculous. 6.6 million people arrived in Türkiye from African countries in the past five years and (most left). We have 142,423 people from Africa with residence permits, from students to businesspeople, and 7,302 others with pending visas. Another 25,109 people arriving from Africa disappeared,” he said, referring to Frontex figures that confirmed those disappeared turned to irregular migration to Europe. “Frontex reported more than 85,000 arrivals into Europe (as part of irregular migration) through Eastern Mediterranean and West Balkans, from the African countries,” he said.
