| Description |
Turkey is part of a migration system that is spread over a large geographical area including Europe, Asia, Middle East and North Africa; which is resulting from geopolitical and historical factors and transformed by local, regional, and international events. The migration flows that Turkey experienced have changed throughout the phases of modern Turkey‟s history. In the Early Republican era from 1923 to 1950, as a part of the nation building process, Turkey saw mass emigration of its non-Muslim populations and the arrival of Muslims from the Balkans. In the period from 1950 to 1980, Turkey was mainly characterized as a country of emigration which attempted to recover its economy by sending thousands of migrants to Europe as a solution to unemployment and in order to receive remittances. The period after 1980‟s saw many developments in the migratory movements. One was the increase in the number of asylum seekers from Turkey, due to the military coup and the Kurdish question. Another development in the 1980s was the arrival of economic migrants into Turkey due to the socioeconomic transformation in the region. Thus, standing at the crossroads of three continents, today, Turkey is a country of emigration, immigration and transit migration. At the same time, the prospect of European Union membership has been an important aspect of Turkey‟s historical modernization project and its political relations to the EU have been very influential in the formation of its migration policy making. Within this context and along the guidelines provided by the EUMAGINE project, this report first gives a historical and socio-economic overview of Republic of Turkey and provides an analysis of migration flows and policies in Turkey. Then, the four research areas of Turkey, namely Emirdağ and Dinar in Afyon; VanMerkez in Van and Fatih in Istanbul selected for EUMAGINE research are described.
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