As the influx of Afghan refugees to Turkey spurs anti-refugee sentiment in the country, Ankara’s policy on the 3.6 million Syrian forced migrants over the past decade is being tested with fire.

Omar Kadkoy, migration policy analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey in Ankara, says that while Turkey has been relatively good at providing health and education to Syrian refugees, it has failed in other areas such as economic and social integration. “What lies at the heart of this problem is Ankara's indecisive vision on whether the Syrians would leave or stay in Turkey for good, which is a difficult point politically,” Kadkoy, who came from Damascus in 2014, told Al-Monitor.

Sebnem Koser Akcapar, director of the Ankara-based Global Migration Research Center, concurred. “Providing housing or access to health services is an immediate service to the new arrivals, and education is a mid-term issue. Economic and sociocultural integration, on the other hand, is a longer-term, complex issue that requires a comprehensive policy both for the Syrians and other groups under international protection in Turkey, including Afghans who have been coming from Afghanistan or Iran for the past 10 years,” she told Al-Monitor, adding that internationally displaced people total some 6 million in Turkey.

“There were, of course, projects related to sociocultural or economic integration, but the pandemic has dealt them a steady blow. The overall picture is now gloomier, with tensions caused by the pandemic and the economic crisis triggering an anti-refugee sentiment among Turkish society, which had initially welcomed the Syrians, thinking they’d be temporary,” she said.