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P 060906Z AUG 08
FM AMCONSUL ISTANBUL
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RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8362
INFO RUEHLM/AMEMBASSY COLOMBO PRIORITY 0001
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA PRIORITY 7844
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ISTANBUL 000416 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF PGOV AA TU PHUM
SUBJECT: NO EASY WAY OUT FOR MANY ASYLUM SEEKERS IN TURKEY 
 
REF: 08 ANKARKA 1270 
 
¶1.  Summary: In meetings with asylum seekers and 
Istanbul-based refugee officials, we confirmed the GOT does 
not recognize "political migrants" from non-European 
countries as "refugees" under the Geneva Convention on 
Refugee Status. Rather, it assigns them temporary "asylum 
seeker" status, denying them the option of permanent 
integration into Turkey. While non-European migrants 
typically arrive in Turkey intending to continue on (legally 
or illegally) to other countries, Turkey's requirements for 
obtaining and maintaining legal asylum seeker status can 
delay migrants indefinitely in Turkey, encouraging illegal 
passage instead. End Summary. 
 
------------------------------ 
GOT's Political Migrant Policy 
------------------------------ 
 
¶2. UNHCR representative Eduardo Yrezebel told us, pursuant to 
a 1951 General Assembly decision, a UN Conference of 
Plenipotentiaries drafted a convention regulating the legal 
status of refugees, defined in the Convention as persons 
seeking to emigrate from their home countries for fear of 
persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political 
opinion or social group membership.  The resulting 1951 
Geneva Convention on Refugee Status, as well as its 1967 
Protocol, charges its signatories to protect refugees and 
mandates UNCHR with the task of supervising the Convention 
and other international conventions providing for the 
protection of refugees, Yrezebel explained. While UNHCR makes 
its own determination as to an applicant's entitlement to 
refugee status, and may file complaints with the European 
Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for violations of the 
Convention, signatories have the final say as to whether they 
will accept an applicant as a refugee. 
 
¶3. According to International Catholic Migration Commission 
(ICMC) officers Bora Ozbek and Damir Thaqi, the ICMC is the 
State Department's overseas processing entity handling cases 
in Turkey and the Middle East and South Asia regions after 
UNCHR makes its refugee status determination (RSD). 
Signatories to the Convention can agree to one of three 
options for the processing of UNHCR-recognized refugees: 
resettlement to resettlement countries; integration into the 
local population; or voluntary repatriation. Ozbek and Thaqi 
explained that when signing the Convention in 1951, Turkey 
acceded to an optional geographic limitation provided for in 
Article 1B. 
 
¶4.  Yrezebal told us Turkish and UNHCR refugee processing 
personnel utilize three terms to describe persons potentially 
covered by the Convention. "Political migrant" describes any 
individual present in Turkey (legally or illegally) seeking 
protection under the Convention. If UNHCR determines the 
individual is entitled to protection, the person is a 
"refugee," whatever the home country might be. The GOT, by 
contrast, reserves the term "refugee" for political migrants 
from European countries who are legally present in Turkey and 
thus entitled to resettlement in Turkey.  GOT refers to 
qualifying non-European political migrants as "asylum 
seekers." 
 
¶5. If asylum status is not granted, the migrant is detained 
until deported, Ozbek said. If asylum status is granted, GOT 
allows the migrant to remain in Turkey (seemingly 
indefinitely, although Turkish law is unclear) until what 
Ozbek terms a "durable solution" is found -- resettlement to 
a third country or voluntary repatriation.  Since few 
countries will resettle Asian and African asylum seekers 
located in Turkey, they must remain in Turkey for an extended 
time, with few options available. The "Turkish National 
Action Plan for Adoption of the EU Acquis in the Field of 
Asylum and Migration" foresees local integration once the 
geographical limitation to the 1951 Convention is lifted, 
Ozbek said, noting the GOT intends to lift the limitation by 
2012 in order to receive assistance from the European 
Commission for asylum seeker assistance projects.  Until 
then, a great incentive to pass illegally through Turkey to 
the West remains.  Tragedies like boating mishaps off the 
Turkish coast and the July 30 suffocation 
 deaths of 13 migrants transiting Turkey result from the 
prohibitive process for attaining and maintaining legal 
status in Turkey, Ozbek stated. 
 
¶6. The 1951 Convention and Turkey's 1994 Asylum Regulation 
 
ISTANBUL 00000416  002 OF 003 
 
 
include a non-refoulement agreement for European refugees and 
non-European asylum seekers (REF) to prevent the deportation 
of migrants to their country of origin -- or other countries 
-- prior to the completion of UNHCR's refugee status 
determination (RSD) procedure, Yrezebal told us. 
Nonetheless, UNHCR had 21 cases of refoulement from Turkey in 
2007, including the refoulement of one Iraqi and seventeen 
Iranian asylum-seekers to Iraq, and two Iranians and one 
Afghan to their countries of origin. In two separate cases he 
notes that UNHCR filed complaints with the ECHR because the 
GOT prevented Iranian refugees from leaving Turkey for third 
countries where they had been accepted for resettlement. The 
Ministry of Interior granted exit visas on learning 
complaints had been filed. Ozbek contends that refoulement 
now occurs rarely and is "less systematic" than when he first 
began working with the issue in 2000. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
UNHCR Judgments Ignored and Access Limited 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
¶7. Ozbek explained that the Department of Foreigners, 
Borders, and Asylum of the Ministry of Interior's General 
Directorate for Security registers asylum-seekers. In the 
past, the Department typically relied on RSD made by UNHCR to 
determine Turkish asylum seeker status. However, both 
Yrezebal and Ozbek report that since 2007 the Department has 
started to adjudicate cases with less reference to the UNHCR 
adjudication, and sometimes in a manner contrary to the UNHCR 
determination in cases where the applicants are considered a 
threat to the GOT. 
 
¶8. In addition to interviewing and registering political 
migrants after they have been accepted into the Turkish 
asylum process, Yrezebal explained that UNHCR also attempts 
to monitor applicants' initial access to the asylum process 
at land borders or airports, to liaise with the Ministry of 
Interior, and to provide limited social service and monetary 
assistance to political migrants. UNCHR reports that 
authorities hinder UNHCR efforts to monitor the asylum 
process by denying UNHCR access to asylum applicants who 
appear at legal entry points. 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
Obstacles Faced By Asylum Seekers 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶9. Ozbek and Thaqi noted that asylum seekers must first 
register with the Foreigners' Police upon arrival, but often 
mistakenly go to UNHCR first, where they are then directed 
back to the police and then to the Department. The Department 
assigns all asylum seekers to one of 30 "satellite cities" 
scattered across Anatolia (no asylum seekers are assigned to 
Istanbul or Ankara). An asylum seeker wishing to depart 
Turkey (either to resettle or to repatriate) must remain in 
the assigned satellite city, report weekly or sometimes daily 
(depending on the city-specific police strictures) to the 
Foreigner's Police, and pay a semiannual resident permit fee 
of $296, according to Yrezebal. Internal Department confusion 
often results in a much higher fee, however, and 
interlocutors at the Interior Ministry reportedly do not know 
the actual rate.  The fee is beyond the means of many, since 
they are not permitted to work; asylum seekers who do not pay 
the fee are denied exit permits when they try to leave Turkey 
for their r 
esettlement destinations.  The fee can be waived for 
"humanitarian reasons" under Turkish law; however, in 
practice the waiver cannot be applied because the Ministry of 
Finance's computer system does not include this option. 
Yrezebal related that without valid permits, asylum seekers 
also cannot obtain access to State social services, medical 
services, or schools, and risk being detained as illegal 
migrants if they are caught. 
 
¶10. Because the government provides no housing and does not 
issue work permits to asylum seekers, Ozbek and Thaqi 
stressed they often move away from their assigned locations - 
usually to Istanbul -- in search of work.  Although employed 
foreigners with a six month residence permit can apply 
through their employer to the Ministry of Labor for a work 
permit, Yrezebal, Ozbek, and Thaqi are not aware of many 
refugees who have managed to do so. Ozbek and Thaqi described 
situations in which families of five were required to pay 
more than $15,000 to depart because they had illegally moved 
from their satellite city to Istanbul in search of work 
several years before a durable solution was found. Over the 
 
ISTANBUL 00000416  003 OF 003 
 
 
last three years, the waiting time for Iraqis has shortened 
significantly to less than a year, Ozbek noted. Seeing "a 
clear light at the end of the tunnel," Ozbek said fewer Iraqi 
families are leaving their satellite cities. 
 
¶11. Foreigners who claim asylum only after being detained by 
the security forces when trying to leave Turkey are housed in 
a "Foreigners' Guesthouse," Yrezebel commented. Guesthouses 
are in fact detention facilities with cement walls and 
floors. Yrezebal related complaints pertaining to shortage of 
food, medical attention, and crowded conditions.  He 
explained that the Ministry of Interior does not always 
release a Guesthouse detainee, even when recognized by UNHCR 
as a refugee, and the Ministry does not always grant UNHCR 
access to asylum seekers. 
 
------------------------------------------- 
Sri Lankan Migrants at Christ Church Hostel 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶12. We also met with three of six Sri Lankan asylum seekers 
between the ages of 20 and 35 living in Christ Church Hostel 
(CCH), the former crypt of Christ Anglican Church in 
Istanbul. Rector Ian Sherwood estimates over 1000 migrants of 
various non-European nationalities have come through CCH 
since he arrived in 1991.  They do not pay rent but 
contribute to the Church's upkeep.  An additional three Sri 
Lankan families with children share apartments in the 
vicinity of the church while they wait for their UNHCR and 
GOT marching orders, which in one case has taken over six 
years. The Sri Lankans complain that the police have 
threatened them with detention and ill treatment and are not 
at all sensitive to their plight. 
 
¶13. Two of the Sri Lankans we met with are 23-year-old 
cousins who grew up in a family of Christian Tamil seamen. In 
2007, both decided to emigrate (illegally) to Italy via 
Turkey because they had heard that Turkey was one of the 
easiest entry points into the European Union. After obtaining 
Turkish visas in Malaysia (supposedly, an easier process than 
using the Turkish embassy in Sri Lanka), they arrived in 
Turkey in November 2007, declaring themselves asylum seekers, 
registering with UNHCR, and moving to their assigned 
satellite city of Gaziantep. After nine days in Gaziantep, 
they moved to Istanbul to find work and seek free housing at 
the hostel.  UNHCR has scheduled interviews for them in 
Ankara on November 28, but they do not plan to remain in 
Turkey much longer, having learned that the (illegal) migrant 
boat ride to Italy is both dangerous and expensive (over 
$5000 per person). While they plan to return to Sri Lanka 
soon, they fear they will be unable to pay the expensive exit 
fee incurred for living ou 
tside of their satellite city. 
 
¶14. We also spoke with a 20-year old Hindu Tamil living in 
CCH for over two years after arriving from Bangkok, another 
easy location for obtaining a visa. He told us he had a UNHCR 
interview scheduled for July 1 in Ankara, but was informed 
only days beforehand that UNHCR had no Tamil interpreter 
available and that his interview would be postponed to an 
undetermined date. "All I can do is wait and waste my life 
without a job here in Turkey," he lamented 
 
¶15. Comment: While Turkey's concern that offering greater 
benefits to asylum seekers will increase the flow of migrants 
into an already taxed economy is understandable, the 
requirements for remaining in and departing Turkey legally 
appear counterproductive. Easing those requirements to meet 
EU standards could make legal departure a reasonable option 
for impoverished political migrants. End Comment. 
WIENER