CAIRO: On Tuesday, the UN Refugee Agency circulated a press release protesting the deportation of a recognized Iraqi refugee by Turkish authorities. Jennifer Pagonis spokesperson for the Office of High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, said in a press conference: UNHCR deeply regrets the refoulement by Turkey of an Iraqi refugee on March 3. The individual, who comes from central Iraq, had been accorded refugee status by UNHCR and had been issued with the relevant documentation on February 13, said Pagonis. On Feb. 20, after a deportation order had been given to the refugee, UNHCR wrote to the Turkish authorities to reiterate their position that Iraqis from southern and central Iraq should be favorably considered as refugees under the 1951 Convention. In that advisory, UNHCR called upon Iraqi neighboring states not to forcibly return any Iraqi from southern and central Iraq. Yet after urging the government of Turkey to allow him to remain in Turkey, regretfully, the government did not respond to our letter or other attempts to communicate with them on this case, Pagonis said. UNHCR appeals to the Turkish authorities to refrain from any such deportations and to all governments in the region to keep their borders open for Iraqis fleeing persecution. The press release also states that some four million Iraqis have fled their homes fearing violence and targeted persecution. Of these, 1.9 million are still living in displacement inside Iraq. As of Jan. 1, statistics given by the UNHCR Turkey show that 2,719 Iraqi refugees have registered, most of whom are living in Istanbul and in provincial cities in Central Anatolia where the authorities assign refugees and asylum-seekers to reside. However, UNHCR believes that the actual number of Iraqis in Turkey may be much higher. As one of the main transit routes for Asians and Iraqi and Iranian Kurds seeking a better life in Western Europe, immigrants are mostly brought illicitly into Turkey via Iran or northern Iraq by smugglers who charge as much as $10,000 dollars per person for forged travel documents and other expenses, including bribes to customs officials. The Turks have their special concern with the whole issue of Kurdish separatism. One of the things that has come across the border to some degree are Turkish troops who have conducted some operations in the Kurdish zone, says Paul Pillar, former chief Mideast analyst for the US intelligence community. The whole issue of Kurdish separatism, anything that would smack of independence, not just de facto, but de jury independence for Iraqi Kurds would be an act against most Turks because of what it might imply with regard to reviving the separatist movement amongst Kurdish Turks. In the past, Turkey has deported several Iranian Kurdish refugees who had sought asylum after fleeing from northern Iraq, the United Nations said. Corabatir, another spokesman for the office of the UNHCR in Ankara, said the Kurds enforced return to Iraq placed them at grave risk. Turkey could also be fixated on the possibility of a repeat of the refugee crisis it had to deal with in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War. Exactly twelve years ago, in March 1991, some two million Iraqi Kurds, fleeing Iraqi suppression of widespread revolt in northern Iraq, escaped to the Turkish border and into Iran. At the time this posed a particularly grave prospect for Turkey which feared that a mass influx of Kurdish refugees would have an inflammatory effect on Turkey's own 12 million restive Kurds and could fuel political instability. In response, Turkey closed its border. Although the UNHCR sought requested reassurance that Iraqi refugees be readmitted if they return, verbal assurance from Turkish officials has not yet been confirmed.
