NEW YORK TIMES: …Why would Turkey be so willing to house refugees — and to house them so well at its own expense? Unlike almost all other refugee camps in the world, Kilis is not run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Rather, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, or AFAD, asked the U.N.H.C.R. for its camp guidelines — minimum distance between tents, and so on — and then designed its own. It staffed the camps with Turkish government employees, allowing in few NGOs and giving those only supporting roles. Except for some relatively minor international donations, the financial responsibility, and all the administrative responsibility, has been Turkey’s alone.
This approach, while costly, has given the Turks a measure of control over every detail — including who is working in their country. Typically, camps are serviced by a number of NGOs, and there can be overlap — or gaps — in the services they provide. The agencies may fight among themselves or clash with local leaders; each has its own hierarchies and staff members, drawn from an unlimited number of nations. Running a camp that way, the Turkish government official speculated, would be complicated: “There’s too many people coming and going. It’s not secure. And it’s distracting.”
But some also think that the Turks were making a savvy bet. Many thought the fighting in Syria wouldn’t last very long. That’s one reason, says Kemal Kirisci, director of the Turkey Project at the Brookings Institution, that the Turks may have invested in such elaborate camps. “It needs to be seen in the context of Turkey’s policy to create one integrated market in the Middle East. The Syrians were going to come, and they were going to stay in these camps, and every single one was going to go home and become grand ambassadors of Turkey.” As Turkey’s economy has grown, so has its hope of being a significant actor on the geopolitical stage. “The Turks have a burning desire to show the external world how great they’re doing. These camps are a very visible way of doing it. With the assumption that it wouldn’t last long, the cost was worth the benefit.”… (more)
