Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08ISTANBUL540
2008-10-23 05:17:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Consulate Istanbul
Cable title:  

IRANIAN AND AFGHAN REFUGEES IN TURKEY: A SNAPSHOT

Tags:  PREF PHUM PGOV PINS PREL IT TU 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO2022
PP RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHDIR RUEHKUK
DE RUEHIT #0540/01 2970517
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 230517Z OCT 08
FM AMCONSUL ISTANBUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8523
INFO RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 ISTANBUL 000540 

SIPDIS

LONDON FOR HAUGEN; BERLIN FOR PAETZOLD; BAKU FOR MCCRENSKY;
ASHBAGAT FOR TANGBORN; DUBAI FOR IRPO

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/23/2018
TAGS: PREF PHUM PGOV PINS PREL IT TU
SUBJECT: IRANIAN AND AFGHAN REFUGEES IN TURKEY: A SNAPSHOT
FROM VAN

REF: A) ISTANBUL 145 B) ISTANBUL 416 C) ISTANBUL 438

Classified By: Deputy Principal Officer Sandra Oudkirk; Reason 1.4 (d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 ISTANBUL 000540

SIPDIS

LONDON FOR HAUGEN; BERLIN FOR PAETZOLD; BAKU FOR MCCRENSKY;
ASHBAGAT FOR TANGBORN; DUBAI FOR IRPO

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/23/2018
TAGS: PREF PHUM PGOV PINS PREL IT TU
SUBJECT: IRANIAN AND AFGHAN REFUGEES IN TURKEY: A SNAPSHOT
FROM VAN

REF: A) ISTANBUL 145 B) ISTANBUL 416 C) ISTANBUL 438

Classified By: Deputy Principal Officer Sandra Oudkirk; Reason 1.4 (d)


1. (C) Summary: We met October 8-10 with UNHCR, provincial,
municipal, and police officials, an NGO, and Iranian Baha'i
families in Van province in southeast Turkey, to look at
conditions facing Iranian refugees. Van hosts between 1700
and 2100 registered refugees, mostly Iranian and Afghan.
Some paid up to $1200 each to be smuggled into Turkey.
Iranian refugees are a mix of religious and political
refugees, the latter primarily members of Kurdish, communist,
or Monarchist parties. UNHCR accepted 56 percent of asylum
applications in 2007. Turkish authorities claim to provide
social services to all needy refugees but the NGO and
refugees we spoke to said otherwise. Baha'i refugees
described systematic persecution by Iranian authorities
including harassment, detention, and denial of access to
education and employment. Baha'is are usually resettled to
US, Canada, or Australia within a year, while political
refugees remain in Turkey an average of four years and
sometimes up to ten.


2. (C) Summary, continued: Several interlocutors admitted
Iran puts pressure on Turkey to send back "sensitive"
political refugees but insisted Turkey rejects such pressure.
Turkish police described being overstretched by growing
numbers and limited resources. They are worried Afghan
refugees numbers will increase further, claiming Iran is
pushing them into Turkey to "punish" the GOT for supporting
sanctions on Iran and/or deploying with NATO in Afghanistan.
Comment: Both UNHCR and local authorities in Van appear
committed to meeting refugee-related obligations in the face
of limited resources, growing numbers of refugees, and poor
cooperation with each other. Iran's role in pushing Afghan
refugees into Turkey (and its role in the actual smuggling
thereof) bears closer scrutiny, which Mission Turkey will

pursue. End Summary and comment.

--------------
Visiting Van
--------------


3. (C) Consulate General Istanbul "Iran Watcher," ConGen
consular officer, and Embassy Ankara Refugee Officer traveled
to Van province in southeast Turkey (150 kilometers from
Iran, 200 kilometers from Iraq) October 8-10 and met with
UNHCR officials, the Deputy Governor, Deputy Mayor, a women's
advocacy NGO, police officials, and several Iranian Baha'i
refugee families, to look at conditions confronting Iranian
refugees before and after entering Turkey. ConGenOffs and
Emboff were accompanied at almost all times by a local
security detail.

--------------
Meeting with UNHCR Van
--------------


4. (C) UNHCR Van protection officers Xhemil Shahu and Mahmut
Kacan explained that their office (with seven total staff),
operating in Van since 1997, covers all refugees in Van and
the neighboring provinces of Hakkari and Agri. UNHCR Van has
a caseload of 1700 registered refugees (1600 in Van),and
Shahu speculated that Van hosts thousands more unregistered
refugees. Asylum seekers entering Turkey irregularly must
register with local authorities in the province where they
entered and with the nearest UNHCR office. Refugees entering
through airports or regular land border checkpoints may
register with UNHCR Ankara. All refugees are then assigned
by police to live in "satellite cities" in central Anatolia,
such as Kayseri (ref A) or Van. Within three to six months
of registration with UNHCR-Van, UNHCR interviews them to
determine whether they qualify for refugee status, a process
that takes a matter of days to weeks, though UNHCR expedites
decision-making for sensitive cases (Shahu cited a recent
case involving a former Iranian intelligence official as one
example).


5. (C) In 2007, UNHCR accepted 56 percent of refugee
applications after the first interview. Rejected applicants
may appeal the decision or file subsequent "sur place" claims
rooted in new bases of persecution, most often conversion to
Christianity while in Turkey. Refugees who entered through
Van are then required to live there until a third country
approves them for resettlement. Shahu told us that only the
United States, Canada, and Australia are currently accepting
Iranian refugees from Turkey; while Finland accepted some
Iranian refugees in the past, it has not done so in 2008.
Religious refugees such as Baha'is and Christians are

ISTANBUL 00000540 002 OF 005


resettled the fastest, sometimes within a year, in part due
to USG willingness to accept such refugees on a fast-tracked
basis. Political refugee cases can take much longer - many
wait in Turkey for years, while some more problematic cases,
such as MEK (Peoples Mujahedeen of Iran) members and other
Iranians who enter Turkey after residing in Iraq, are never
accepted by a third country for resettlement.


6. (C) Deportations: Asked whether Turkey respects refugee
status granted by UNHCR, Shahu said yes but offered several
notable exceptions. He was aware of five cases in 2007 of
Turkey deporting registered Iranian refugees back to Iran.
He cited a recent case of 24 Uzbeks who held UNHCR refugee
certificates and had been living in Van the past year, who
were deported in September to Iran, where they had been
living the previous six years (having been granted refugee
status there by UNHCR in Tehran). His fear is that Iran will
not allow them to re-register as refugees, and instead may
send them to Uzbekistan where they face the risk of
persecution for their past political activities there.
(Comment: Some members of that group, according to Shahu,
had a relative in Turkey pay $5000 to an Iranian smuggler to
bring them back into Turkey a few days later.) Shahu also
cited the case of an Iranian family in Hakkari province who
were sent back to Iran in September, though because they were
not detained in Iran they simply made their way back to
Turkey several days later and registered with UNHCR directly
in Ankara, where they remain. Shahu acknowledged that "It
is not always clear why Turkey deports refugees. It is
usually a decision made by the Ministry of Interior, which
does not share its reasons with UNHCR." Shahu also cited a
case in July where the GOT tried to deport two MEK members to
Iran but Iran refused to accept them at the border, stating
that they couldn't be Iranians since they spoke Arabic. They
remain in custody in Turkey.


7. (C) Iranian political refugees: UNHCR staff explained
that most non-religious Iranian refugees claim to be members
of ethnic or political opposition parties in Iran. A
majority of such applicants claim membership in the Kurdistan
Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI). Smaller numbers claim
membership in Iran's monarchist, communist and Marxist
parties (Tudeh, the Communist Party of Iran, and the Worker's
Communist Party of Iran),as well as some student leaders and
human rights activists not affiliated with a party. Among
the 44 percent of refugee applicants rejected by UNHCR last
year were many KDPI and other opposition party supporters,
who could not prove they were actual card-carrying party
members or could not show UNHCR they were at risk of
persecution merely because of their participation in
non-violent activities like handing out leaflets or chatting
on the internet.


8. (C) Assistance to refugees: UNHCR provides one-time
assistance to the "neediest" refugees, usually a $100
payment, not enough to cover the approximately $400 annual
residency permit charged all refugees by local authorities.
(Refugees are not permitted to depart Turkey for onward
resettlement until the residency fee has been paid.) UNHCR
presses Van authorities to help meet refugees' humanitarian
needs by providing basic necessities like coal, blankets,
food, water, and medical care, but such assistance is
inconsistent. Shahu said NGOs such as the Red Crescent also
help, but that conditions facing refugees in Turkey are still
difficult, as refugees are not allowed to work and must find
and pay for their own housing. The European Commission has
offered funding to build a center in Van to house refugees in
a central location, and the Van municipality has provided
property, but construction has not yet started. Van
authorities refuse to break ground on the preliminary
infrastructure projects (a road out to the site, electricity,
water and sewage systems) until the EC provides the money for
construction of the facility itself.


9. (C) The Afghan problem: Shahu told us that the majority
of refugee cases he now faces are Afghans. The week before
our visit, 251 Afghans showed up at UNHCR Van in one day
alone. Most refugees entering Turkey illegally do so with
the help of smugglers. According to Shahu, the current rate
smugglers are charging for entry from Afghanistan to Iran is
$600 per person, and $1200 for entry into Turkey from Iran.
"For people as poor as these, that is a huge price to pay to
get to Turkey. I wonder where they get this money," he
pondered. Despite the association with smugglers, Shahu
assessed that the refugee population in Van was not a
significant source of crime, as refugees in Van tend to "lay
low and keep to themselves."

--------------

ISTANBUL 00000540 003 OF 005


Van authorities downplay the refugee issue
--------------


10. (C) Van Deputy Governor Ozmer Ozcan told us that Van
authorities try to coordinate closely with their Iranian
neighbors on common issues of concern, noting that Van's
Governor meets every three months with the Governor of Iran's
Western Azerbaijan province. Ozcan admitted that refugees
pose a resource challenge to Van, but he assured us that
Van's social security administration gives assistance to the
"neediest" refugees, a determination it makes by requiring
refugees to apply via bureaucratic process, with paperwork is
exclusively in Turkish. Social security officials then ask
the refugees' neighbors whether the refugees are truly needy.
Ozcan defended the practice of charging refugees a residency
fee, claiming it helps offset the social services they
receive and the processing required for local police to
perform what is essentially a parallel process to UNHCR's
refugee status determination. He told us that Iran sometimes
asks Turkey to send back sensitive Iranian refugees, but
asserted that Turkey is committed to its Geneva Convention
obligations to protect refugees. He said the refugees are
not involved in serious crime but many are involved in black
market trading and working illegally. Some get involved in
drugs, especially those whose refugee applications are
rejected by UNHCR, and usually end up staying long-term in
Turkey.


11. (C) Ozcan confirmed Van province is working with the EC
on the planned refugee center, indicating that the province
will pay for infrastructure (wiring, utilities),though Ozcan
himself has concerns about the center, including that it
would force refugees from different countries, cultures and
religions to live together, potentially causing conflicts.
Ozcan told us his office was not responsible for border
control with Iran; he was unaware of a border cooperation
agreement signed between Iran and Turkey during Iranian
President Ahmadinejad's August visit to Istanbul (ref C).


12. (C) Ozcan downplayed Van's commercial links with Iran,
telling us that the primary highways from Iran go through
Hakkari and Agri provinces, not Van. He described a main
railway line from Iran that stops at Lake Van, but said the
train was not used by Iranian traders to bring goods into
Turkey, so Iranian products are not sold in as much volume in
Van as they are in Hakkari and Agri provinces. Ozcan further
claimed that very few Iranian companies are registered to do
business in Van, but many Van-based companies (small and
medium enterprises) sell goods over the border in Iran.


13. (C) Van Deputy Mayor Abdullah Calim dismissed our
questions about Iranian refugees with the assertion that "all
are welcome in Van; there are no problems here." He claimed
Van provides all basic necessities and social services to its
refugee population. He estimated Van's official population
at about 300,000, but told us the municipality probably had
up to 620,000 residents because of migration from surrounding
Turkish villages. Calim described at length his support for
beautification projects throughout the city (e.g., getting
rid of "sign anarchy," moving street vendors to bazaars
outside the town center, planting flowers, making sure every
neighborhood has a public funeral home),but was unwilling to
discuss the resources that the city of Van actually devotes
to refugee needs.

--------------
Difficult conditions facing refugees
--------------


14. (C) We met with the assistant director of the Van
Women's Center (VAKAD),a 15-person NGO that runs three
shelters for at-risk women, offering a total of 20 beds for
the most at-risk refugee women and children for up to two
months (longer in special cases.) She said Van authorities
no longer give any help to refugees. VAKAD receives small
grants from several EU countries and support from NGOs like
Amnesty International, but gets no help from local
authorities. Most refugees at VAKAD's shelter are Afghan and
Iranian; most are fleeing domestic violence; or a husband
died and the family tried to force them to marry a brother;
or they came to Turkey to escape religious or ethnic
persecution. She confirmed that if a refugee feels
threatened VAKAD petitions police for protection, but the
police do not always accept petitions. In that case, VAKAD
helps the women seek UNHCR assistance to transfer to another
city. (VAKAD successfully petitioned Van authorities to
transfer the entire gay, lesbian and transsexual Iranian
refugee community from Van to Kayseri and Eskisehir because
of their problematic relations with conservative locals in

ISTANBUL 00000540 004 OF 005


Van.) To empower the refugees, VAKAD tries to teach them
skills like sewing that would make them employable on the
gray market. Even so, she confirmed that many refugees still
turn to drugs and prostitution.


15. (C) We met several Iranian Baha'i refugees at one
refugee's home. The Baha'i refugees included a single
30-year old from Karaj, a young married couple from Tehran
and Esfahan, and a 40-something mother of three children from
Tehran. They described constant, pervasive persecution in
Iran from both the Iranian government and from residents and
co-workers because of their conversion to Baha'ism. Sharing
experiences similar to those we heard from Baha'i refugees in
Kayseri (ref A),they explained that once neighbors and
co-workers realized they were Baha'i they were threatened and
ostracized. Some family members dropped contact with them,
and work became impossible. One refugee reconfirmed that
Baha'i (in this case in Karaj) are actively prevented from
teaching or practice their faith, or from assembling in
groups. They felt that pressure on Baha'i had increased as a
result of an Iranian Majles decision in December 2007 to
publish a revised penal code that requires the death penalty
for "apostasy," a term the GOI applies to the Baha'i. One of
the refugees knew personally the seven Baha'i community
leaders arrested and imprisoned in Iran in March and May,
noting that the Iranian government's claims in the press that
the group have admitted spying for Israel probably means they
have been tortured and may yet be executed.


16. (C) The Baha'i refugees agreed that while far preferable
to staying in Iran, life as a refugee in Van is hard. They
said they receive no support from authorities, and confirmed
that refugees must pay a significant residency permit fee
which most cannot afford. One refugee estimated that some
650 Iranian Baha'i (including 10 children under 12) are
currently living in Van. All the refugees we spoke to have
family or friends in the U.S., which has helped them get
"fast-tracked" for resettlement to the US, facilitated by the
International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC, see ref
B). They welcomed statements of support issued by the U.S.,
EU, UN, and others that put a spotlight on Iran's systematic
persecution of Baha'is, saying it sometimes eases the
pressure, temporarily. One refugee also urged an
international campaign to specifically press Iran to allow
Iranian Baha'i members to opt out of obligatory military
service, given Baha'ism's commitment to non-violence.

--------------
Touching a nerve with Van's police
--------------


17. (C) We concluded our travel by meeting with Van's Deputy
Security Chief Salih Bayazit and Chief of Van's "Foreigners
Police" Guven Seker. Seker rejected UNHCR's estimate of
1700 registered refugees in Van, claiming the true figure was
over 2100 and increasing daily, especially with the recent
arrivals of large groups of Afghans. Seker said Van now
faces over 400 refugees arriving every month, calling it a
serious and growing problem. He criticized UNHCR Van's "poor
record keeping" and disorganization (comment: raising
questions about the extent of cooperation between the two
offices). He said many of the new Afghan arrivals have been
refugees in Iran for 10-15 years, but Iran is now pushing
them on to Turkey to "punish Turkey" for deploying troops
under NATO command in Afghanistan. "The Iranians are using
the refugees to play politics with us." Seker said the rise
in Afghan refugees is also leading to a rise in smuggling,
with some smuggling even "supported by a few Iranian
officials."


18. (C) Van police hold border coordination meetings with
Iranian counterparts to avoid conflicts at the border, Seker
told us. "We have the oldest border agreement in the world
and we work hard to keep it safe." He said Turkey and Iran
cooperate against Kurdish (PJAK and PKK) terrorism, as well
as against drug and people smuggling. But Seker groused that
Iran sometimes claims that Turkey "is not doing enough on our
side to stop the smuggling going eastward!" He agreed that
Iran sometimes asks Van police to return specific political
refugees, but asserted that Van police accept their Geneva
Convention obligation to allow refugees to stay in place.
"We are obliged to keep them and protect them, unless they
are doing something bad here, in which case we send them to
third countries, not back to Iran."


19. (C) Resource burden: "Compare Van to Finland: We have
2100 refugees, Finland has 1500. We take more refugees than
Italy, Greece, or Hungary. We are doing everything we can,
but we need more international help." Seker reiterated that

ISTANBUL 00000540 005 OF 005


Iran is "using Turkey to play games. America and other
countries pressure Iran, but Turkey has to pay the bill." He
admitted that Van security force resources are strained by
having to deal with refugees. He described Van police
officers feeding refugees out of their own kitchens, taking
up collections to pay for refugees' medical exams, and even
paying refugees, overdue residency fees to allow them to
leave Turkey for onward resettlement.


20. (C) We need more help: Seker warned that increasing
numbers of Afghan refugees could include Al-Qaeda or Taliban
members. "Helping us stop this new wave would help your own
security." We reminded Seker of active US-Turkey cooperation
on fingerprint-sharing, on drug and WMD detection at Turkey's
borders, and on anti-smuggling. Seker told us Turkey already
takes ten-point fingerprints of every incoming refugee, but
data collection and processing is hampered by limited
budgets. Seker said Van's "Foreigners Police" department,
with only 23 officers, needs need more equipment to control
the border. "We know how to control borders better than you
do -- you can't stop illegal immigration from Mexico " but we
lack hi-tech equipment to protect Van's long (comment: 237
km) border with Iran."


21. (C) We explained that we were not criticizing local
authorities' refugee-assistance efforts, only gathering facts
about conditions on the ground. We underscored that the U.S.
took 2700 refugees from Turkey last year. Seker countered
that USG "only takes the easy ones: the Baha'i, the
families. The bad ones stay in Turkey." He reconfirmed that
the average stay of an asylum seeker in Turkey is three
years, with some here waiting for resettlement up to nine
years, and that Turkey hosts over 25,000 long-term refugees.
Closing the meeting, Seker again pleaded for "the same level
of cooperation and assistance on refugees as you give us on
counter-narcotics. It's part of the same problem."

--------------
Van atmospherics
--------------


22. (C) Atmospherics: We found our interlocutors to be
relaxed and friendly (with the exception of the overworked
police officers),reflecting a surprisingly open atmosphere
throughout Van. Police presence on the street was minimal,
there was no noticeable tension stemming from the previous
week's PKK attack against a police outpost in nearby Hakkari
province, and travel around the city -- including the
occasional moment when we excused ourselves from our police
escort -- was easy. The only clear cultural indication that
we were closer to Iran, Iraq and Syria than to Ankara or
Istanbul was when we attended a local soccer match and
witnessed team officials sacrificing a sheep as a pre-game
ceremony, with players from both teams wiping the blood on
their uniforms for good luck -- and noticed that the only
women among the hundreds of spectators were the two in our
own delegation.

--------------
Comments
--------------


23. (C) Both UNHCR and local authorities in Van appear
committed to meeting refugee-related obligations in the face
of limited resources, growing numbers of refugees, pressure
from Iran, and poor cooperation with each other. Conditions
for refugees in Turkey are difficult, with no legal right to
earn income during what is for most a several-year stay.
Indeed, we were surprised that Iranian refugees are not a
larger source of crime or social tension in Van; most of them
appear to endure the hardship while largely staying out of
trouble with the authorities. Embassy Ankara and ConGen
Istanbul will continue to raise our concerns with GOT
interlocutors, however, regarding the occasional cases of
UNHCR-registered refugees whom the GOT deports or sends to
third countries. We will also continue to press the GOT
bilaterally and at the OSCE to stop requiring refugees in
Turkey to pay a residency fee.


24. (C) Iran's role in pushing its Afghan refugees into
Turkey (and even in facilitating the smuggling thereof),
which some Van officials claimed reflected a decision by Iran
to punish Turkey, bears closer scrutiny. We will continue to
examine this issue on future Iran- and refugee-related
reporting.
WIENER