Turkey as a buffer state; Soft borders

1989 was a turning point on the stage of world history. For some, the fall of the Berlin Wall was a dream come true. Looking at it today, it is a dream turned into a nightmare. Thirty-five years ago, there were fewer than twelve hard customs borders in the world. Today, 35 years later, that number is over seventy. The fall of the Berlin Wall, which the world public predicted would bring an end to hard customs and walls, has instead caused an increase in hard customs and walls. 

Among the prominent reasons for this, asylum seekers can be cited. Indeed, first of all, it is necessary to reach a terminological consensus on how to address individuals or groups of people who set out on a journey—whether forced or voluntary—from their own countries to others for various reasons. In the Republic of Turkey, which has been hosting asylum seekers, migrants, and refugees since 2011, these three concepts are used as synonyms for one another, and no terminological consensus has been reached. 

An asylum seeker is defined in the Glossary on Migration (IOM, 2009) as an individual who is seeking safety in a country other than their own with the goal of being protected from harm, and who is waiting for the outcome of their application to be recognized as a refugee. If the individual's application is rejected, the possibility of deportation arises. In other words, the fact that the application they have made to the countries where they have taken refuge has not yet been accepted means that these individuals are in the status of "asylum seeker" during the waiting period. With these characteristics, asylum seeking is considered a preliminary status. 

Turkey accepted the 1951 Geneva Convention with a "Geographical Limitation," using the right to choose regarding location provided in Article 1. Accordingly, a conditional refugee is a person who, due to events occurring outside of Europe, claims to meet the conditions in the definition of a refugee and requests international protection from Turkey in order to seek asylum in third countries.

Regarding refugee status, in our country, only asylum seekers coming from Europe are granted "refugee" status, while those coming from outside Europe are not. For this reason, those who have come from Syria and taken refuge in our country are accepted as "asylum seekers under temporary protection."

Migrants, on the other hand, are generally people who migrate from one country to another of their own free will for better social, economic, political, and cultural living standards. It is obvious that it will be easier to examine the picture ahead when these terminological differences are taken into account. 

Despite the difference in these legal terms, their use as synonyms in daily life, on news channels, in articles, and even by legal professionals, leads to the further deepening of a situation that already appears difficult to resolve. 

The only customs we face today, 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, do not appear as hard customs and walls in a general sense. Added to this are the "soft borders" that we, as the Republic of Turkey, have personally come to face. 

Soft borders, as the name suggests, are built through "aid" provided to a buffer zone, where a specific region and area are protected by another region and area, compared to a classic wall method. 

If it were not for the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Atlantic pressure on Syria, these migrations would not have occurred. Further back, for instance, if it were not for the colonialism of European imperialist states—which only fully ended after the Second World War—there would not have been such migration from African countries to Europe. However, the US and Europe, which are the causes of the problem, not only fail to solve the problem but even avoid facing it and create policies to ensure the problem does not reach them.

Indeed, when these issues are taken into account, the territory of the Republic of Turkey has been assigned the role of a soft border between the European Union and the Middle East, which is trapped in a triangle of civil war, terrorism, and dictatorial regimes. The EU aims to keep people who want to leave Middle Eastern countries for the aforementioned reasons away from its borders through the aid it provides to the Republic of Turkey in this regard. 

In summary, migration is now a very significant problem for Turkey. If this problem is not solved in a healthy manner, it will lead to new sociological problems in the future and give rise to new and larger unwanted issues. However, based on what we have mentioned above, the matter is also a problem of governance. If the government does not want to, it is not possible to solve this problem. The past 13 years are proof of this.