Six out of 10 Turkish citizens would prefer Syrian refugees to return home

Turkey is now home to more than half of the displaced Syrians who have been forced to flee their country because of the war. The decade-long civil conflict between pro-Bashar al-Assad forces, opposition fighters such as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and jihadist groups has led to the departure of more than 5.5 million refugees since 2011. Of these displaced people, around 3.7 million are in Ottoman territory, making Turkey the country with the largest refugee population in the world. 

However, this large wave of migration has greatly altered the demography of Turkey's south-western provinces - Kahramanmarash, Hatay, Sanliurfa and Gaziantep - and has led to increased tensions between refugees and local populations.

This is reflected in the survey on Syrian migration conducted by the Foundation for Social Democracy in Turkey (SODEV) on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Damascus conflict. According to the survey, a worrying 66 per cent of Turkish respondents believe that Syrian refugees should return to their country, compared to almost 17 per cent who believe they should be resettled in safe areas, and 7 per cent who believe they should be distributed equally by country and city. However, in the hypothetical situation of the end of the Syrian conflict, the percentage of respondents who advocate a return of displaced persons to their country of origin rises to 84%.

This growing animosity towards refugees also manifests itself in other areas, such as the perception of Syrian migrants - more than 70 per cent of Turkish respondents consider them "not clean, trustworthy or polite", while 57 per cent say they are not hardworking - and their interactions with them; seven out of 10 Turks say they communicate with Syrian citizens only when they are obliged to do so. 

In the same vein, more than half of respondents would be disgusted by the idea of their children going to the same school as a Syrian child, 55% would prefer not to have a Syrian neighbour, and 65% would not marry a Syrian person or allow their children to do so. 

However, these discriminatory tendencies are not based on personal experiences, as more than three quarters of the citizens interviewed have not suffered any harm or prejudice from a Syrian refugee in the last five years. SODEV president Ertan Aksoy has tried to explain this situation to Arab News by claiming that refugees are serving as a 'scapegoat' for the political instability and falling purchasing power faced by the Turkish population. The main causes of this economic slump are rising inflation - which is over 20 per cent -, the devaluation of the lira and the persistent reduction in interest rates.  

Since the beginning of the migration movements in 2011, displaced Syrians have established more than 10,000 companies and small businesses in Ottoman territory, mainly in the areas of real estate, manufacturing, hospitality and construction. Although this may have been an economic liberation for Tayyip Erdogan's government, almost seven out of 10 respondents to SODEV's survey said they were against Syrian businesses. 

"This situation is largely due to [the Turkish population's] refusal to accept Syrians as members of the wider community," said TEPAV's Turkish migration policy analyst Omar Kadkoy. This was reflected in the survey, in which only nine per cent of respondents were in favour of buying from a Syrian-owned company. In fact, almost half of the respondents said they would never do so under any circumstances.

Moreover, another concern for the Turkish population is the permanence of Syrian communities in Ottoman territory once the conflict ends. In this regard, respondents fear a negative impact on their values, rising crime rates, a deteriorating economy and a decline in the country's culture. Nearly half of the participants believe that displaced Syrians "could pose a challenge in the future". 

"The research results reveal that Turkish society's approach to Syrian migrants is negative in many respects. Several studies on migrants reveal that the majority of displaced people prefer to stay in the countries they have moved to. Therefore, as social democrats, we must continue to fight against these exclusionary and discriminatory attitudes and activities," said Ertan Aksoy. 

One of the main reasons for the exorbitant number of refugees in Turkey is the signing of readmission agreements with the European Union in 2014. Through these agreements, Brussels and Ankara agreed on the Ottoman country's obligation to readmit any migrant who illegally entered European territory from Turkey, in exchange for the EU speeding up negotiations for Ankara to join the Union and abolishing visa requirements for Turkish citizens. 

This situation has been questioned by various international analysts and experts, as the location of EU border controls in the hands of the Ankara government could turn the EU into a dependent actor without the capacity to position itself strongly in strategic negotiations. In this sense, a hypothetical threat by the Turkish government to unilaterally break the pact - as already happened in 2019 - could once again put in check a Union that has not yet figured out how to manage large migratory waves.