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Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Turkey

In 2016 at year’s end, Turkey, for the third consecutive year, hosted the largest number of refugees worldwide, as the number of people forcibly displaced across the world due to conflict, violence and persecution hit record levels. Turkey currently hosts over 3.5 million registered Syrian refugees along with over 365,000 persons of concern from other nationalities registered to UNHCR.

The Republic of Turkey is a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol, maintaining the geographical limitation to the 1951 Convention, thus retaining resettlement to a third country as the most preferred durable solution for refugees arrived due to the events occurred outside of Europe. Turkey has been undertaking legislative and institutional reforms to build an effective national asylum system in compliance with the international standards. In April 2013, Turkey’s first ever asylum law, the Law on Foreigners and International Protection, was endorsed by the Parliament and entered into force on 11 April 2014. The Law sets out the main pillars of Turkey’s national asylum system and established the Directorate General of Migration Management (DGMM) as the main entity in charge of policy-making and proceedings for all foreigners in Turkey. Turkey also adopted Temporary Protection Regulation on 22 October 2014, which sets out the rights and obligations along with procedures for those who are granted temporary protection in Turkey.