​Syrian refugees, Ziraat-Germany and presidential polls

TURKEY - In Brief 21 Apr 2022 by Atilla Yesilada

---

The speed and heft of developments in the political arena makes it almost impossible to fit all analyses in a humble Weekly. Thus, the I’m selecting certain topics which are important on their own, but not so salient as to deserve a separate essay in the Weekly to cover in mid-week briefs. This Market brief covers three topics: First the Erdogan administration is staging a U-turn on the fate of Syrian refugees, which will have a domino effect in several adjacent political topics. Secondly, Germany's financial watchdog BaFin appointed a representative to ensure the German unit of Turkey's Ziraat Bank “fulfills obligations including obeying laws against money laundering”. Finally, opinions by five out of four reliable pollsters show that Kilicdaroglu is leading Erdogan in the presidential polls. The ”policy drift” of the administration is becoming acute and outright harmful to social peace. Only a week ago, President Erdogan had expressed his wish to ease the requirements to grant Syrian refugees citizenship. The opposition was outraged; claiming Erdogan wants to pad the voter rolls with “loyal” Syrians, because he realized he can’t win the next elections. However, objections by his ally Bahceli (MHP) and several polls indicating AKP voters don’t want Syrians in Turkey, seems to have changed Erdogan’s mind. The new policy is ”persuasion to return home voluntarily”. In practice, experts claim, it amounts to paying or intimidating Syrians to go home. According to Foreign Affairs minister Mr. Mevlut Cavusoglu, in the first three months of the year 21K refugees were expelled on grounds of violating their temporary stay status. Cavusoglu stated that a new initiative has been ...