Killing two birds with one stone: Erdogan’s Syria refugee plan

The ‘safe zone’ being established by Turkey and the United States in northeast Syria could soon become a haven for Syrian refugees currently sheltered in Turkey. If there is going to be a truly equitable resettlement, however, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cannot be permitted to relocate millions of Syrians who are not originally from this region in order to destroy its long-established Kurdish demographics.

Erdogan has insisted that Turkey aims to resettle two to three million Syrians in the ‘safe zone’. 

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, Erdogan held up a large map featuring a thick red line showing where he intends to resettle this mass of refugees. 

“We intend to establish a peace corridor with a depth of 30 kilometers and a length of 480 kilometers in Syria and enable the settlement of two million Syrians there with the support of the international community,” Erdogan said. 

“With the US or coalition forces, Russia and Iran, we can all together walk shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand – any refugees can be settled there.” 

The map showed the northeast Syrian regions controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which stretches eastward from the Euphrates River all the way to the border with Iraq. 

While Erdogan talked about settling two million Syrians, his map noted that Turkey intends to resettle one million. 

Also, the depth and width of his proposed zone is notably much larger than the US and Turkey have yet agreed. Washington proposed a much smaller zone that would not span the entire border and would have a depth of about 15 kilometers. Erdogan reportedly agreed to this. 

Two million Syrians would be an enormous influx of people into northeast Syria, which is sparsely populated, compared to the more urban west of the country. 

Furthermore, the majority of the Syrian refugees presently in Turkey are not originally from this region. 

Erdogan likely wants to kill two birds with the one stone: remove millions of Syrians from Turkey, where hostile sentiments have been rapidly rising in recent months, and make the Kurds of northeast Syria a minority in their own land.

This would not be unprecedented. After it invaded the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in early 2018, Turkey hurried to resettle Syrian Arabs there, giving them vacated Kurdish properties and even Turkish-issued Syrian identity cards.  

This was a clear policy of erasing the region’s Kurdish character. Symbols of the region’s Kurdish identity, such as the statue of Kawa the Blacksmith, a mythical figure in Kurdish culture, have been destroyed Islamic State-style by Turkey’s Syrian militia proxies. 

Meanwhile, well-established demographics have been overturned, since Turkey could easily have resettled Syrian Arabs in the much larger Arab-majority Euphrates Shield Zone, which Turkey also controls. 

Ankara touts the security and stability of the Euphrates Shield Zone – situated westward of the Euphrates River and seized from the Islamic State in the Euphrates Shield operation of 2016-17 – and often highlights the reconstruction efforts it has sponsored there, which have indeed made the area a suitable one for a safe zone. 

The zone covers at least 2,000 square kilometers. 

Resettling millions of Syrians in northeast Syria could not only cause problems between Arabs and Kurds but could potentially create intra-Arab tensions as well. 

Although Syrians are predominantly Sunni Muslims, different regions do not share the same accents and customs. Therefore, permanently resettling large numbers of Syrians who are not indigenous to the northeast could cause unnecessary harm. 

This is primarily why the SDF is open to permit the return of Syrian refugees provided they “originally come from NE Syria”. 

The SDF also says “the refugees must not be connected to any terror activities or crimes against the Syrian people”. 

This stance is perfectly reasonable, since it gives many Syrians in Turkey the opportunity to return to their towns and to reclaim and rebuild their homes. It also would not seriously alter the demographics of the two main Syrian Kurdish regions of Kobane and Jazira – which constitute Syrian Kurdistan’s (Rojava) heartlands. 

The US – which is committing 150 troops out of an approximate total of 1,000 in Syria from the anti-Islamic State campaign to help manage the safe zone with Turkey – wants the UN and non-governmental organizations to assist in any resettlement effort.  

Dr Ali Bakeer, a political analyst and consultant, seriously doubts Erdogan will “move the three million refugees to the long-awaited ‘safe zone’”. 

“But by connecting the refugee issue with the safe zone issue, he is saying that without the safe zone there will be no solution to the refugee issue and Turkey can’t tolerate the burden anymore,” he said. 

“So, the safe zone is just a step in this matter.”

Dr Bakeer believes some refugees originally from the area of the safe zone will return while “others who might seek to temporarily stay in a safe area inside Syria until they can go back to their places might follow too”.

Aaron Stein, Director of the Middle East Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, says Erdogan’s push for a major resettlement of refugees in northeast Syria shows “he is finely attuned to his electoral liabilities”.

“The Turks have had this policy for years now and they have pushed people to go to the Euphrates Shield Zone and Afrin areas,” he said. 

“But, the numbers being thrown around now are absurd, both in terms of being able to get the US or SDF buy-in and, more importantly, the buy-in of Syrians living inside Turkey.”

Stein reiterated that the numbers should not be taken seriously and Erdogan’s comments should instead be interpreted as “a means to appease dissatisfied voters and pressure the US”.

He is unsure whether the SDF will play a major role in any resettlement since Turkey wants them to leave the border, “so much remains murky about what is actually happening here”.