INTRODUCTION Though migration has been a significant part of human history, since 1945 and especially after mid-1980s the importance and volume of international migration has been increasing which seems to be permanent (Castles &...
moreINTRODUCTION
Though migration has been a significant part of human history, since 1945 and especially after mid-1980s the importance and volume of international migration has been increasing which seems to be permanent (Castles & Miller, 1998: 4). This increase, which became more evident especially with the end of the cold war, is now trending towards the west due to reasons such as armed conflicts, terrorist activities, drought, hunger, economic inequality, and/or human rights violations. When we look at the figures worldwide, the number of immigrants worldwide reached to 272 million and it corresponds to 3,5% of the world population (IOM, 2020: 19). Despite the fact that refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) consist only a small proportion of this number, they are often the most in need of help and support (IOM, 2020: 19) which might turn their situation into a crisis any time both in internal and international political agenda. This is exactly how the refugee crisis caused by the Syrian conflict manifested itself.
As intense demonstrations and protests against to the regime in Syria with the influence of Arab Spring has shown itself in the form of civil war since March 2011, there have been serious human movements towards out of Syria. Evidently the first target of this humanitarian mobility was the neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. In a very short time, these countries started to serve both as target and transit countries for those who look for better living conditions. Until 2015, while these countries and particularly Turkey were shouldering the greatest part of the refugee burden, the European Union chose not to be directly involved in the refugee issue, except for a few small-scale and low-budget project-based initiatives and aid programs.
But after the summer of 2015, when refugee crisis has become the focus of attention of the world press after the mass death resulting from boat accidents in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas, there has been a drastic change in the approach of the European Union to the issue. Indeed, this change goes back to 2014, when immigrants started to push the borders of Europe by using Turkey and other first countries as transit countries. The year 2015, when the situation reached undeniable dimensions and turned into a humanitarian crisis, represents an important turning point in the relations between Turkey, who had invited the European Union to share the refugee burden since 2011 but did not get the answer she sought for, and the EU, which prefers to solve the issue by pushing it beyond its borders.
It is worldwide known and accepted that countries try to develop policies to manage migration towards them by several policies like limiting migration, border security and integration (Erdoğan, 2020: 96). Yet, not accepting the refugees to the European soil, which they accept as uniform, and pushing the refugees back to countries which are made buffer zones by making agreements and trying to get rid of international obligations and responsibilities is a new picture that emerges with the Syrian refugee crisis. In this chapter, Turkey’s and the EU’s approach towards refugee crisis will be compared with regards to humanitarian and security-oriented perspectives. On the way to the refugee crisis, Turkey's open-door policy started in 2011 and ended de facto in 2016 (Karakoç Dora, 2020a: 503), as well as the European Union's push-back strategy, which tries to push the issue out of its own lands and manage the process through buffer countries, will be discussed. Throughout these discussions, the relations between two parties, Turkey and the EU, which constitute the subject of “our research, will be evaluated and it will be emphasized where the refugee crisis may evolve in the future and where it might further lead relations.