Info Series
Info Series #5: Myth - Turkey is a safe third country
Why Turkey is not a safe place for people on the move and why it matters
In November 2020, the Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum, Notis Mitarakis, said in an interview, “...if somebody comes from the east and he comes to Turkey and he’s not at risk in Turkey, then he should not be applying to Greece for asylum.” This argument has been used repeatedly in Greece and beyond; namely, that Turkey is a safe country and therefore asylum seekers who have come to Greece, via Turkey, can and should be sent back to get protection there. This argument is widespread and has been used all over Europe for years; particularly - but far from exclusively - by the political right. The notion of Turkey as a safe third country was the foundation for the so-called EU-Turkey deal signed in 2016. It is a core element of the plan to externalise European migration management to third countries. Despite the popularity of this opinion, the facts reveal it to be a myth, which is based more on governments and the European Union attempting to find creative ways to deny people on the move the right to seek asylum in Europe than on any valid legal basis.
The concept of “safe third countries” was introduced into EU legislation in the 1980s as a way to restrict immigration while adhering to human rights standards. It was integrated into EU Community law in 2005, and into the first Asylum Procedures Directive in 2013. Recently, it has become a popular, yet dubiously legal, way for countries to deny refuge to people on the move, by claiming they must seek asylum in the first safe country they pass through. Despite its frequent use, many organisations, including The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) argue that there is no justification for a “safe third country” regulation, and that the concept is used by the EU in order to manipulate migration flows, which could constitute discrimination.
Before addressing whether or not Turkey can be considered a safe third country, it is important to understand what the term ‘safe third country’ means. There is no universally accepted legal definition of a safe third country. Article 38 of the EU Asylum Procedures Directive defines it as a country that satisfies several criteria, including that “the principle of non-refoulement is respected” and “the possibility exists to request refugee status...in accordance with the Geneva Convention”.
The main issue with Turkey being considered a safe third country is that it has an extremely narrow definition in place regarding who it considers to be a refugee. When signing the 1951 Refugee Convention, Turkey was one of only four countries to adopt the optional geographic limitation that narrowed who could be given refugee status to those affected by “events occurring in Europe”. It maintained the geographic limitation when it signed the 1967 Protocol, which means that, until today, Turkey only recognizes people displaced from Europe to be eligible for refugee status. As a result, none of the approximately 4 million refugees living in Turkey today have been granted refugee status and cannot claim all the rights awarded to them in the Geneva Conventions. This clearly goes against the aforementioned safe third country requirement that “the possibility exists to request refugee status...in accordance with the Geneva Convention”. Additionally, it goes against EU Directive 2013/32/EU on asylum procedures, which states in Article 39 that a third country can only be considered safe, if “it has ratified and observes the provisions of the Geneva Convention without any geographical limitations”.
Instead of granting refugee status to the at least 3.6 million Syrians residing in Turkey, the Turkish government instead created new domestic laws to offer some kind of legal status to them. This includes the 2013 Law on Foreigners and International Protection (LFIP) and the Temporary Protection Regulation (TPR) adopted in 2014. These two legislative acts provide some of the same protections and benefits as the Geneva Convention, such as access to rights and services like education, health care and social services, but without the same guarantees that go along with being granted refugee status. For example, regulations make it extremely difficult for refugees to obtain the work permits they need to participate in the official labour force, pushing the vast majority to seek jobs in the informal labour market, which generally pay less, are often exploitative, and lack any worker protections. Many refugees with international protection status in Turkey have not had access to the official labor market for decades. Additionally, because the protection offered to refugees is not bound by international law, Turkey can change its laws at any point. Article 11 of the TPR allows the government to “terminate the temporary protection” and return “persons benefiting from temporary protection to their countries”, and thus people are not granted the same long-term security that usually accompanies being granted refugee status in other countries. Furthermore, there are also many problems with the supposedly guaranteed access to education, health care, and social services.
While these recently established domestic laws have allowed millions of Syrian refugees to enjoy temporary protection in Turkey, they are no adequate substitute for the 1951 Geneva Convention, and for the most part exclude all non-Syrian refugees.
For all these reasons, other states assessing the legal situation in the country should not be treating Turkey as a safe third country.
Another problem with treating Turkey as a safe country is its troublesome history with deporting people on the move back to unsafe countries. In addition to the deportation of thousands of Afghans in 2018, which has sadly become a common practice throughout Europe, Turkey is deporting many Syrians illegally, even though they have obtained the legal status of Turkish Temporary Protection, and are often in the process of obtaining citizenship. Reports show that these refugees are illegally detained and forced to sign “voluntary” return declarations, acknowledging their supposed danger for security and public health. There are several reasons for this, including racism, economic problems and nationalism. Authorities claim that 315,000 refugees had been voluntarily returned to Syria by 2019. In light of the numerous reports about forced "voluntary" returns, it is unclear how many of them truly returned of their own volition.
Apart from being unsafe for people on the move in particular, Turkey also mistreats the human rights of its own citizens. One example is the treatment of Turkey’s Kurdish population, which is being systematically denied democratic rights through delegitimation and criminalisation of its elected representatives. Other examples are found in the widespread arbitrary arrests and reports of torture and inhuman treament of prisoners, which led to two reports by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture in 2017 and 2019. There are also many instances of violations of women’s rights and LGTBQ+ rights, as shown in recent weeks throughout the media, as well as severe limitations on freedom of expression and assembly.
For all of these reasons, Turkey is excluded from the list of so-called “safe countries of origin” of most EU member states. Indeed, the UNHCR reports that more than half of asylum applications by Turkish citizens are granted in Europe. With almost 30,000 applications, it is also placed sixth among countries of origin of asylum seekers in Europe.
Clearly, a country that is not safe for many of its own citizens and violates the rights of minority groups, cannot be considered safe for asylum seekers; even more so, if they belong to these same minority groups.
In March 2016 the European Union and the Turkish government agreed to the so-called “EU-Turkey Deal” in a statement of cooperation. This was the result of intense negotiations driven by the EU’s desire for “migration cooperation” between the two parties. The EU wanted to reduce the number of asylum seekers entering EU territory - namely Greece, Bulgaria and Italy - from Turkey and in return, support the Turkish government’s “migration control”.
Apart from promises regarding visa free travel and an expansion of the tariff union between the EU and Turkey, the EU promised 6 Billion Euros in funding. This money was not meant to be handed over to the Turkish government but rather to international organisations with their headquarters in the European Union to carry out projects supporting refugees in Turkey. In 2019, the foreign ministry of Germany said that the Turkish government had received more control over the money.
In return for these promises, Turkey agreed to prevent the departure of asylum seekers from Turkish territory and to readmit those who crossed the border to Greece irregularly but did not qualify for asylum, did not apply for it or withdrew their applications. For each of the Syrian refugees thus “readmitted” to Turkey, the EU committed to resettle one of the many Syrian refugees living in Turkey to EU countries (read about the details here). The EU itself seemed to have been aware of the risk of pushbacks occurring under this new deal, as it was also clarified that: “This will take place in full accordance with EU and international law, thus excluding any kind of collective expulsion. All migrants will be protected in accordance with the relevant international standards and in respect of the principle of non-refoulement.” The EU furthermore promised to improve some aspects of Turkish integration into the EU and restart negotiations over Turkey becoming a member state.
In January 2020, the Greek government passed a law to speed up asylum applications and send back asylum-seekers to Turkey much more quickly. This policy also included stating that all Syrians are considered safe in Turkey and can be returned. As readmissions to Turkey are currently not possible, due to Covid-19 restrictions and other reasons, these people are now held in detention centres.
The actions of this landmark deal were presented by the European Union as a humanitarian initiative to improve conditions for people on the move in Turkey. However, it is clear that the EU-Turkey deal is just another step in the EU’s increasing externalisation of ‘border management’, disregarding human rights and the safety of people seeking protection. Another example of this development is the similar agreement the EU has with the even less safe Libya. It can also be observed in the EU’s ‘hotspot approach’, which has turned reception facilities for people on the move into detention centres. These hold large numbers of people that are denied human and asylum rights, as well as their freedom of movement.
The real motive of reducing the number of refugees in Greece became increasingly clear. With asylum applications being rejected faster and reception facilities for asylum seekers turning into detention centres it became obvious that the EU-Turkey deal was another mechanism of tightening the borders to Fortress Europe. Subsequently, the human rights situation for asylum seekers in Greece has become significantly worse.
These developments will only accelerate further if the ‘New Pact on Migration and Asylum’ is passed. This policy plan was launched by the European Commission in September 2020 and proposes to completely overhaul the EU’s existing long-standing policies on migration. In doing so, it risks exacerbating the focus on externalisation, deterrence, containment, faster rejections and return of people seeking protection and safety to unsafe countries like Turkey. The pact has been heavily criticised by organisations, human rights watchdogs and civil society networks.
For the first two years of the deal, the EU provided 3 Billion Euros, which covered, among other things, the cost of providing education for over half a million Syrian child refugees. In March 2018, the EU announced that the second instalment of 3 Billion Euros “would be made available”. However, the Turkish government disputed this, claiming they have only received 1.85 Billion Euros from the EU. Throughout the second year of the agreement, Turkey repeatedly threatened to terminate the agreement because, firstly, the EU has allegedly not paid the stipulated amount, and secondly, neither the visa freedom for Turkish citizens nor the expansion of the tariff union provided for under the agreement has not been implemented. Many of the political commitments the EU made to Turkey, especially negotiating EU membership, were stalled due to the authoritarian developments of the Turkish government. Nearly two years later, in December 2020 - after Turkey had abused the lives of people on the move as leverage in the negotiations in March 2020 - the EU announced that they had paid the final instalment of the 6 Billion Euros fund - however other sources are saying only 4.1 billion have been transferred so far.
Five years after the agreement, the deal has failed: both morally and practically, by its own standards. Thousands of refugees have been trapped in limbo in Greece, leading to the overcrowding of hotspots. Tensions have risen between security forces and host communities against people on the move, in both Greece and Turkey. Turkey’s political will has also dissipated in the face of deepening public hostility and dislike towards people on the move and increasing anger at Europe for not doing its share. Turkey hosts at least - the number is likely to be significantly higher due to the number of undocumented people living in Turkey - 4 million refugees. In comparison, since 2016, the EU has resettled just 25,000 Syrian refugees from Turkey. With most refugees out of sight and away from the EU’s borders, EU member states have simply wished the problem away.
The current status of the deal, as of 2021, is up in the air. With the final instalment having been paid to Turkey, there are ongoing talks about renewing the deal but both sides are struggling to meet in the middle. One of the demands the EU is unwilling to meet seems to be Turkey's requirement that the EU pay for resettlement of Syrians from Turkey to the Turkish occupied territories in Syria. This would mean officially and publicly acknowledging Turkey as an occupying force; something the EU could never agree to. In 2020, the EU - and the US - imposed light sanctions on Turkey due to concerns over democratic backsliding and systemic human rights violations. Just over a week ago, president Erdogan announced his “Human Rights Action Plan'' in response to increasing pressure from the EU and US - while continuing a crackdown on opposition parties, the LGBTQI+ community and others. The future of the deal is uncertain and the negotiations around it highly non-transparent.
Underlying all of these discussions is the assumption that Turkey is a safe third country for asylum seekers and refugees. It was the foundation of the EU-Turkey deal and is used to legitimise returning people on the move to Turkey by various political decision makers and commentators. But not only is the concept of a ‘safe third country’ highly dubious in international law, Turkey clearly cannot be considered as such. The simple fact remains that Turkey does not grant the protection to refugees and asylum seekers they would be entitled to by the Geneva Convention. It has an ongoing track record of violating human rights, has a history of forced collective expulsions of people on the move, and is itself a country that people escape from to seek protection from persecution and violence abroad.
European Union member states have willingly ignored all these facts and looked to Turkey to deal with people on the move looking for safety and protection in Europe. Despite its claims of wanting to save lives and stop smugglers through the EU-Turkey deal, the European Union has basically paid-off Turkey to do the dirty business that it does not want to be associated with.
When talking about Turkey as a safe third country, it is crucial to be aware that the term ‘safe country’ is a politicised term, used by certain groups in the EU to justify the seemingly advantageous deal with Turkey, legitimising and sanitising a deal that is putting people’s lives at risk and simply externalises the brutality of the European border regime.
Asylum in Europe: Introduction to Asylum Context in Turkey, Nov 2020
Human Rights Watch: Is Turkey Safe for Refugees? (Bill Frelick), Mar 2016
Refugee Support Aegean: #StopTheToxicDeal: Turkey as a “Safe Third Country”, Mar 2018
Law Faculty Oxford: Turkey as a Safe Third Country? (Orçun Ulusoy), Mar 2016
Mediterranea Berlin: Across the Border: The situation of refugees in Turkey (video), Feb 2021
In November 2020, the Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum, Notis Mitarakis, said in an interview, “...if somebody comes from the east and he comes to Turkey and he’s not at risk in Turkey, then he should not be applying to Greece for asylum.” This argument has been used repeatedly in Greece and beyond; namely, that Turkey is a safe country and therefore asylum seekers who have come to Greece, via Turkey, can and should be sent back to get protection there. This argument is widespread and has been used all over Europe for years; particularly - but far from exclusively - by the political right. The notion of Turkey as a safe third country was the foundation for the so-called EU-Turkey deal signed in 2016. It is a core element of the plan to externalise European migration management to third countries. Despite the popularity of this opinion, the facts reveal it to be a myth, which is based more on governments and the European Union attempting to find creative ways to deny people on the move the right to seek asylum in Europe than on any valid legal basis.
The concept of “safe third countries” was introduced into EU legislation in the 1980s as a way to restrict immigration while adhering to human rights standards. It was integrated into EU Community law in 2005, and into the first Asylum Procedures Directive in 2013. Recently, it has become a popular, yet dubiously legal, way for countries to deny refuge to people on the move, by claiming they must seek asylum in the first safe country they pass through. Despite its frequent use, many organisations, including The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) argue that there is no justification for a “safe third country” regulation, and that the concept is used by the EU in order to manipulate migration flows, which could constitute discrimination.
Before addressing whether or not Turkey can be considered a safe third country, it is important to understand what the term ‘safe third country’ means. There is no universally accepted legal definition of a safe third country. Article 38 of the EU Asylum Procedures Directive defines it as a country that satisfies several criteria, including that “the principle of non-refoulement is respected” and “the possibility exists to request refugee status...in accordance with the Geneva Convention”.
The main issue with Turkey being considered a safe third country is that it has an extremely narrow definition in place regarding who it considers to be a refugee. When signing the 1951 Refugee Convention, Turkey was one of only four countries to adopt the optional geographic limitation that narrowed who could be given refugee status to those affected by “events occurring in Europe”. It maintained the geographic limitation when it signed the 1967 Protocol, which means that, until today, Turkey only recognizes people displaced from Europe to be eligible for refugee status. As a result, none of the approximately 4 million refugees living in Turkey today have been granted refugee status and cannot claim all the rights awarded to them in the Geneva Conventions. This clearly goes against the aforementioned safe third country requirement that “the possibility exists to request refugee status...in accordance with the Geneva Convention”. Additionally, it goes against EU Directive 2013/32/EU on asylum procedures, which states in Article 39 that a third country can only be considered safe, if “it has ratified and observes the provisions of the Geneva Convention without any geographical limitations”.
Instead of granting refugee status to the at least 3.6 million Syrians residing in Turkey, the Turkish government instead created new domestic laws to offer some kind of legal status to them. This includes the 2013 Law on Foreigners and International Protection (LFIP) and the Temporary Protection Regulation (TPR) adopted in 2014. These two legislative acts provide some of the same protections and benefits as the Geneva Convention, such as access to rights and services like education, health care and social services, but without the same guarantees that go along with being granted refugee status. For example, regulations make it extremely difficult for refugees to obtain the work permits they need to participate in the official labour force, pushing the vast majority to seek jobs in the informal labour market, which generally pay less, are often exploitative, and lack any worker protections. Many refugees with international protection status in Turkey have not had access to the official labor market for decades. Additionally, because the protection offered to refugees is not bound by international law, Turkey can change its laws at any point. Article 11 of the TPR allows the government to “terminate the temporary protection” and return “persons benefiting from temporary protection to their countries”, and thus people are not granted the same long-term security that usually accompanies being granted refugee status in other countries. Furthermore, there are also many problems with the supposedly guaranteed access to education, health care, and social services.
While these recently established domestic laws have allowed millions of Syrian refugees to enjoy temporary protection in Turkey, they are no adequate substitute for the 1951 Geneva Convention, and for the most part exclude all non-Syrian refugees.
For all these reasons, other states assessing the legal situation in the country should not be treating Turkey as a safe third country.
Another problem with treating Turkey as a safe country is its troublesome history with deporting people on the move back to unsafe countries. In addition to the deportation of thousands of Afghans in 2018, which has sadly become a common practice throughout Europe, Turkey is deporting many Syrians illegally, even though they have obtained the legal status of Turkish Temporary Protection, and are often in the process of obtaining citizenship. Reports show that these refugees are illegally detained and forced to sign “voluntary” return declarations, acknowledging their supposed danger for security and public health. There are several reasons for this, including racism, economic problems and nationalism. Authorities claim that 315,000 refugees had been voluntarily returned to Syria by 2019. In light of the numerous reports about forced "voluntary" returns, it is unclear how many of them truly returned of their own volition.
Apart from being unsafe for people on the move in particular, Turkey also mistreats the human rights of its own citizens. One example is the treatment of Turkey’s Kurdish population, which is being systematically denied democratic rights through delegitimation and criminalisation of its elected representatives. Other examples are found in the widespread arbitrary arrests and reports of torture and inhuman treament of prisoners, which led to two reports by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture in 2017 and 2019. There are also many instances of violations of women’s rights and LGTBQ+ rights, as shown in recent weeks throughout the media, as well as severe limitations on freedom of expression and assembly.
For all of these reasons, Turkey is excluded from the list of so-called “safe countries of origin” of most EU member states. Indeed, the UNHCR reports that more than half of asylum applications by Turkish citizens are granted in Europe. With almost 30,000 applications, it is also placed sixth among countries of origin of asylum seekers in Europe.
Clearly, a country that is not safe for many of its own citizens and violates the rights of minority groups, cannot be considered safe for asylum seekers; even more so, if they belong to these same minority groups.
In March 2016 the European Union and the Turkish government agreed to the so-called “EU-Turkey Deal” in a statement of cooperation. This was the result of intense negotiations driven by the EU’s desire for “migration cooperation” between the two parties. The EU wanted to reduce the number of asylum seekers entering EU territory - namely Greece, Bulgaria and Italy - from Turkey and in return, support the Turkish government’s “migration control”.
Apart from promises regarding visa free travel and an expansion of the tariff union between the EU and Turkey, the EU promised 6 Billion Euros in funding. This money was not meant to be handed over to the Turkish government but rather to international organisations with their headquarters in the European Union to carry out projects supporting refugees in Turkey. In 2019, the foreign ministry of Germany said that the Turkish government had received more control over the money.
In return for these promises, Turkey agreed to prevent the departure of asylum seekers from Turkish territory and to readmit those who crossed the border to Greece irregularly but did not qualify for asylum, did not apply for it or withdrew their applications. For each of the Syrian refugees thus “readmitted” to Turkey, the EU committed to resettle one of the many Syrian refugees living in Turkey to EU countries (read about the details here). The EU itself seemed to have been aware of the risk of pushbacks occurring under this new deal, as it was also clarified that: “This will take place in full accordance with EU and international law, thus excluding any kind of collective expulsion. All migrants will be protected in accordance with the relevant international standards and in respect of the principle of non-refoulement.” The EU furthermore promised to improve some aspects of Turkish integration into the EU and restart negotiations over Turkey becoming a member state.
In January 2020, the Greek government passed a law to speed up asylum applications and send back asylum-seekers to Turkey much more quickly. This policy also included stating that all Syrians are considered safe in Turkey and can be returned. As readmissions to Turkey are currently not possible, due to Covid-19 restrictions and other reasons, these people are now held in detention centres.
The actions of this landmark deal were presented by the European Union as a humanitarian initiative to improve conditions for people on the move in Turkey. However, it is clear that the EU-Turkey deal is just another step in the EU’s increasing externalisation of ‘border management’, disregarding human rights and the safety of people seeking protection. Another example of this development is the similar agreement the EU has with the even less safe Libya. It can also be observed in the EU’s ‘hotspot approach’, which has turned reception facilities for people on the move into detention centres. These hold large numbers of people that are denied human and asylum rights, as well as their freedom of movement.
The real motive of reducing the number of refugees in Greece became increasingly clear. With asylum applications being rejected faster and reception facilities for asylum seekers turning into detention centres it became obvious that the EU-Turkey deal was another mechanism of tightening the borders to Fortress Europe. Subsequently, the human rights situation for asylum seekers in Greece has become significantly worse.
These developments will only accelerate further if the ‘New Pact on Migration and Asylum’ is passed. This policy plan was launched by the European Commission in September 2020 and proposes to completely overhaul the EU’s existing long-standing policies on migration. In doing so, it risks exacerbating the focus on externalisation, deterrence, containment, faster rejections and return of people seeking protection and safety to unsafe countries like Turkey. The pact has been heavily criticised by organisations, human rights watchdogs and civil society networks.
For the first two years of the deal, the EU provided 3 Billion Euros, which covered, among other things, the cost of providing education for over half a million Syrian child refugees. In March 2018, the EU announced that the second instalment of 3 Billion Euros “would be made available”. However, the Turkish government disputed this, claiming they have only received 1.85 Billion Euros from the EU. Throughout the second year of the agreement, Turkey repeatedly threatened to terminate the agreement because, firstly, the EU has allegedly not paid the stipulated amount, and secondly, neither the visa freedom for Turkish citizens nor the expansion of the tariff union provided for under the agreement has not been implemented. Many of the political commitments the EU made to Turkey, especially negotiating EU membership, were stalled due to the authoritarian developments of the Turkish government. Nearly two years later, in December 2020 - after Turkey had abused the lives of people on the move as leverage in the negotiations in March 2020 - the EU announced that they had paid the final instalment of the 6 Billion Euros fund - however other sources are saying only 4.1 billion have been transferred so far.
Five years after the agreement, the deal has failed: both morally and practically, by its own standards. Thousands of refugees have been trapped in limbo in Greece, leading to the overcrowding of hotspots. Tensions have risen between security forces and host communities against people on the move, in both Greece and Turkey. Turkey’s political will has also dissipated in the face of deepening public hostility and dislike towards people on the move and increasing anger at Europe for not doing its share. Turkey hosts at least - the number is likely to be significantly higher due to the number of undocumented people living in Turkey - 4 million refugees. In comparison, since 2016, the EU has resettled just 25,000 Syrian refugees from Turkey. With most refugees out of sight and away from the EU’s borders, EU member states have simply wished the problem away.
The current status of the deal, as of 2021, is up in the air. With the final instalment having been paid to Turkey, there are ongoing talks about renewing the deal but both sides are struggling to meet in the middle. One of the demands the EU is unwilling to meet seems to be Turkey's requirement that the EU pay for resettlement of Syrians from Turkey to the Turkish occupied territories in Syria. This would mean officially and publicly acknowledging Turkey as an occupying force; something the EU could never agree to. In 2020, the EU - and the US - imposed light sanctions on Turkey due to concerns over democratic backsliding and systemic human rights violations. Just over a week ago, president Erdogan announced his “Human Rights Action Plan'' in response to increasing pressure from the EU and US - while continuing a crackdown on opposition parties, the LGBTQI+ community and others. The future of the deal is uncertain and the negotiations around it highly non-transparent.
Underlying all of these discussions is the assumption that Turkey is a safe third country for asylum seekers and refugees. It was the foundation of the EU-Turkey deal and is used to legitimise returning people on the move to Turkey by various political decision makers and commentators. But not only is the concept of a ‘safe third country’ highly dubious in international law, Turkey clearly cannot be considered as such. The simple fact remains that Turkey does not grant the protection to refugees and asylum seekers they would be entitled to by the Geneva Convention. It has an ongoing track record of violating human rights, has a history of forced collective expulsions of people on the move, and is itself a country that people escape from to seek protection from persecution and violence abroad.
European Union member states have willingly ignored all these facts and looked to Turkey to deal with people on the move looking for safety and protection in Europe. Despite its claims of wanting to save lives and stop smugglers through the EU-Turkey deal, the European Union has basically paid-off Turkey to do the dirty business that it does not want to be associated with.
When talking about Turkey as a safe third country, it is crucial to be aware that the term ‘safe country’ is a politicised term, used by certain groups in the EU to justify the seemingly advantageous deal with Turkey, legitimising and sanitising a deal that is putting people’s lives at risk and simply externalises the brutality of the European border regime.
Asylum in Europe: Introduction to Asylum Context in Turkey, Nov 2020
Human Rights Watch: Is Turkey Safe for Refugees? (Bill Frelick), Mar 2016
Refugee Support Aegean: #StopTheToxicDeal: Turkey as a “Safe Third Country”, Mar 2018
Law Faculty Oxford: Turkey as a Safe Third Country? (Orçun Ulusoy), Mar 2016
Mediterranea Berlin: Across the Border: The situation of refugees in Turkey (video), Feb 2021
