Turkey on Tuesday criticised a US programme to offer potential resettlement to Afghans who may be targets of Taliban violence due to their US affiliations, saying the move would cause a “great migration crisis” in the region.
Experts say Ankara is seeking to use the transit of potential transferees via a third country as a bargaining chip in its strained relationship with the US.
The US State Department on Monday announced a new programme under which thousands more Afghans will have a chance to resettle as refugees in the United States. Afghans in the progamme would have to make their own way to a third country, where they will wait 12 to 14 months for their application to be processed.
A senior State Department official said Washington had been in discussion with neighbouring countries on potential outflows, adding it was important that Pakistan’s borders with Afghanistan remain open, while others might travel to Turkey via Iran.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said in a statement it rejected a reference to Turkey as a migration route for Afghans and added that Turkey, the world’s leading host for refugees with more than 4 million migrants, would not “undertake a new migration crisis on behalf of a third country”.
“As Turkey, we do not accept the irresponsible decision taken by the United States without consulting our country. If the United States wants to take these people to its country, it is possible to transfer them directly to their country by planes,” the ministry said.
“No one should expect the Turkish nation to bear the burden of the migration crises experienced as a result of the decisions of third countries in our region,” it added.
Hundreds of Afghans have crossed into Turkey in recent weeks amid rising violence in Afghanistan, raising concerns of a fresh influx of migrants.
A total of 201,437 Afghan migrants were caught in Turkey in 2019. The coronavirus pandemic saw those numbers drop to 50,161 last year and around 29,000 so far this year.
US-Turkish relations have been strained over issues ranging from Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defence systems, over which it has been the target of US sanctions, to policy differences on Syria, Libya and the East Mediterranean as well as human rights issues and a US court case targeting Turkey’s majority state-owned Halkbank.
Washington in December imposed sanctions on Turkey over its purchase of Russian air defences, while Ankara has been angered that the United States has armed Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria and refused to extradite a US-based cleric Turkey accuses of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt and recognised the Armenian genocide.
Ankara has offered to guard and operate Kabul’s Hamid Karzai international airport after the US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, in a move that could create an area for cooperation between the NATO allies.
Source: Arab Weekly
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