Foreign Policy Blogs

The Syrians Wait for a New Future at the Turkish Border

Syrian President Esad’s regime is still standing despite the weeks long protests and callings for a regime change in Syria. Recently, the Syrian National Television released the videos of military operations on a northern town, Cisr el Sugur. Many people from Cisr el Sugur and surrounding towns are already on the move to run from Esad’s army. While many Syrian are running to its closest neighbor with hopes of safety, Turkey is in despair with overwhelming numbers of people passing through its southern border.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry recently launched a crisis center for the Syrian refugees. However, Turkish officials repeatedly said the Syrian border will not be closed. According to the ministry, Turkey will host around 800 thousand refugees. The city of Hatay, where these refugees will enter to Turkey expects a much high number. So far, Turkish Red Crescent provided the refugees with food, shelter and clean water. Injured Syrians are being taken to the nearby hospitals in Hatay, via Turkish Army facilitators.  The newly created Turkish crisis center for Syrian refugees hopes to create a protective area just outside the border to keep the Syrians safe yet outside of the borders, unless the life threatening attacks reaches close enough for evacuation possibilities. 

The Syrian crisis has also hit Turkey economically, since the Trade and Tourism in the south region of Turkey, depends very much on Syria. There are also on going agreements with Esad’s regime with tobacco and tea export, as well as construction.

According to the data of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the number of the Syrian tourists who visited Turkey in 2007 was 332,847 and increased significantly each year with new projects developing between the countries. While the number of the Syrian tourists in 2009 was 509,679, it reached to 899,494 in 2010. Hence, an increase of 91 % with regard to visitor number was recorded in 2010 compared to the previous year. Syria became the 8th country which sends most tourists to Turkey in 2010.

The legal framework of economic relations was strengthened with the Free Trade Agreement founded in 2003, mutual abolishment of the visas and completion of several bilateral agreements. It is expected that volume of trade between the two countries, in a short time, will reach to 5 billion dollars from 800 million dollars thanks to the Free Trade Agreement. Turkey’s trade volume reached to 1, 8 billion dollars as of 2009. This number surpassed 2, 2 billion dollars in the first 11 months of 2010 and it is envisaged to reach to the target of 5 billion in a short period of time.

No surprise, Turkish government supported Esad’s regime during AKP’s administration, looking at these numbers in economical trade and tourism. However, now international community aims for humanitarian solutions first to end this crisis and calls for sanctions on Esad’s government from all the leaders in the region, including Turkey. 

Turkish government is starting to realize it may be the time to loosen the close ties with Esad’s regime and invest in the future of Syria. In one if his recent statements, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while criticizing Esad on fighting his own people, still hoped Esad regime to keep its reign with the necessary reforms.

The Turkish elections are tomorrow. I will be interested to see votes from the southern region of Turkey, whom may be changing their minds from AKP at this point, for not being more protective over their relatives and for supporting directly or indirectly a regime that shed blood. Many locals of Turkish Southern region have relatives and close ties between the Syrians from the Ottoman Era. Syrians are seeking sanctuary not only from a country known for its generosity and hospitality, but from people also carrying their blood for hundreds of years. This must be the reason, for the local Turkish communities to very actively being involved in this humanitarian cause. In Hatay, many small civilian organizations already raised funds to provide their scared and alarmed neighbors with more food, shelter and most importantly, hope.

The Syrians Wait for a New Future at the Turkish Border