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00:00Well, today our team went to the Öncepinar border crossing.
00:03That is a Turkish border crossing with Syria.
00:06It's about 50 kilometers from where I am right now in the city of Gaziantep.
00:11On the other side of the border, of course, is Syria and the province of Aleppo.
00:16That's where many Syrians who are registered as refugees here in Turkey are from.
00:21We saw many refugees today waiting for hours to get those authorizations
00:26that would allow them to go back into Syria.
00:29We spoke to one refugee who hadn't seen his parents, he told us, in 12 years.
00:34He had fled to the Syrian city of Homs where he first spent three years before.
00:39He then fled across the border into Turkey.
00:42And the reason he fled, he told us, was because his parents told him to.
00:45They were frightened that he would be forced to serve,
00:49that he would be conscripted in the Syrian government forces.
00:53He also lost two brothers, two brothers who had become rebel fighters,
00:57who had joined the Free Syrian Army.
00:59That rebel outfit later renamed the Syrian National Army.
01:03We also spoke to a father and son,
01:05the father who was ecstatic to be able to take his son back to Syria
01:09because when they first fled, he told us, his son was only three years old.
01:12So his son has no memory of what Syria looks like.
01:16So this will be the first time his son really discovers his homeland.
01:21Yeah, that's quite exciting news for that person.
01:24Andrew, we've heard from the Turkish authorities
01:26that they're going to try and increase the number of migrant crossings
01:29now that Assad has fallen and people are going to be looking to go home.
01:35But what's the reality there on the ground?
01:40Yeah, so in Turkey, there are roughly 3.2 million Syrians
01:45who are officially registered as refugees here.
01:48The actual number of Syrian refugees living in Turkey
01:52might be closer to four million, however.
01:55Now, many of them live in camps.
01:57Others live with relatives and friends in cities across Turkey.
02:02Now, the Turkish government has said
02:04that it is indeed beefing up its border facilities
02:07to be able to handle up to 20,000 crossings per day.
02:11Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
02:13also recently announced that he would open another border crossing,
02:17Yardaya, that's in the province of Hatay, to the west of here
02:21to ease the return of those Syrian refugees.
02:24Of course, it's no secret that Turkey's president
02:26wants many refugees to return home.
02:29But the reality is not everyone wants to go home.
02:32I've spoken to refugees who live now in cities like Istanbul,
02:36some of whom have been living in Turkey for more than a decade,
02:39who've made themselves a new life here, you know.
02:42So many of those people don't want to go back to Syria straight away.
02:47Other people, of course, are waiting to see how the situation unfolds,
02:52whether or not the security situation really does stabilise in the long run
02:57before making that decision to go back to Syria.
03:00Andrew, great to get that update there.
03:03That's Andrew Healy, France 24's reporter,
03:06standing by for us on Turkey's southern border.
03:10Well, as we've been mentioning, attention is turning to what's next
03:13for the millions of Syrian refugees spread out across the world here in Europe.
03:18There are growing calls for those who fled the civil war
03:20to begin returning home, with a number of nations announcing Monday
03:24that they are suspending asylum requests for Syrians.
03:27Among those countries are France, Austria and Germany.
03:31Germany is home to one million Syrians
03:34and has the highest number of Syrian asylum seekers in the continent.
03:38We're going to cross over to Germany now and speak to Susan Fretzke,
03:44who is a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute's
03:49International Programme. It's great to have you on the programme, Susan.
03:53Thanks so much for joining us.
03:56So you're in Berlin and we've of course seen the far right
04:01AFD party, politicians from that party,
04:05saying that those who've been celebrating the downfall of Assad,
04:09Syrians that have been celebrating the downfall of Assad,
04:12should be returning home now because, by all accounts, they have nothing to fear for.
04:17What's your reaction to that?
04:20Well, I think the best way to approach the situation at the moment
04:25is really to wait and see what happens.
04:27We aren't in a position yet with the Syria government itself to really have a firm
04:33sense of who will end up controlling all of the territory,
04:36what the power sharing arrangements will be.
04:38And in fact, if this really is the end of the active conflict,
04:43I think we need to wait and see what happens on the ground.
04:46And even if, hopefully, the active conflict is finished
04:50and we'll see a more stable regime coming out of Syria,
04:53it will take a long time for the country itself to rebuild,
04:57for there to be sufficient economic opportunities,
04:59and for people to really have sufficient access to services,
05:05be able to rebuild their homes and their lives.
05:07So it's really quite soon to be making any pronouncements or suggestions that,
05:12the large number of refugees in Germany at the moment begin to plan their return to Syria.
05:17Well, Austria may be a bit more premature because it's saying that it's going to start
05:21deporting Syrian migrants in their country.
05:26Tell us about the fact, what sort of precedents this is going to set
05:30if people are already, or authorities are already planning to deport migrants
05:34back to countries where we don't even know if,
05:37don't even know what the future is going to hold
05:39and whether it's going to be safe for them to return.
05:42Well, Austria is getting, obviously, a bit ahead of itself.
05:46I think it's important to look at the specifics of the announcement.
05:49At the moment, what the government has said is that
05:52they have asked to prepare a return plan for Syrians,
05:57which means that they are looking at the situation
06:00and evaluating whether or not they could plan to end refugee status
06:06and other forms of protection for Syrians,
06:07and then begin to encourage people to return home.
06:11That doesn't mean that they will immediately begin to deport people.
06:16Hopefully what will happen is they will conduct a review,
06:20determine that more information is needed, and begin to encourage people,
06:24provide support for them to return, reintegration packages, these sorts of things.
06:28But certainly any decision to begin to end refugee status at this point
06:33and force people to return home would be very premature
06:37and likely against international law.
06:39And Susan, a lot of analysts are suggesting the reason why European countries
06:44are taking this step to suspend asylum seeker requests for Syrians
06:48is because they are worried about a repeat of the crisis that we saw in 2015,
06:53where we had millions of Syrians coming to Europe.
06:57Tell us whether you see a situation like that repeating itself
07:00in the aftermath of Assad's fall.
07:03Well, I think, again, we'll have to see how the situation evolves.
07:07There are certainly a lot of fears, of course,
07:09that if the new government that has come in
07:12doesn't manage to maintain control of the country and consolidate power,
07:18that you could end up in a situation with various factions vying for control
07:22that could end up displacing more people.
07:25In that situation, of course, it would be the country's neighbouring Syria
07:29that would see the biggest impact.
07:33Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon host the majority of Syrians,
07:37though, of course, there are quite a large number of people
07:40who have found protection in Europe, particularly Germany as well.
07:44I think, though, that the political situation in Europe in the moment
07:48is such that European countries,
07:51if something like that were to emerge again,
07:53pressures like that were to emerge again,
07:55they would likely take much more drastic action
08:00and would likely respond quite quickly by trying to find many different ways
08:06to stop people from arriving in Europe,
08:08some of which may not be or may push the boundaries of legality.
08:13And Susan, let's stay with the potential repeats of 2015 happening again.
08:20Those critical of the crisis say that it cost Europe millions
08:24and it was a massive fiscal challenge for Europe.
08:28Economically, can Europe afford to have a repeat of 2015?
08:34Well, it's quite difficult to put a specific price tag
08:38on something like the 2015 and 2016 migration crisis
08:44because many of those individuals who arrived
08:46have now integrated into the labour market.
08:49They're paying taxes, contributing, beginning to fill labour force gaps.
08:54That European countries are facing that are quite critical.
08:57So it's quite difficult to calculate the actual cost of that situation in particular.
09:03That being said, of course, there are costs that a situation like that imposes,
09:10including on asylum systems and integration supports and these sorts of things.
09:15I think the bigger challenge, though, that 2015 and 2016 created for Europe
09:19was the political crisis that it caused.
09:23We often see when a situation like that emerges,
09:26that publics are very supportive and generous within the first few months or even year or two.
09:32And then that support begins to fade as the crisis continues.
09:36And I think we've seen that in Europe,
09:38that as irregular and mixed migration has continued along many of the same routes in Europe,
09:43publics have become much less tolerant of continued arrivals of asylum seekers.
09:50And the cost that I would be particularly concerned about,
09:53if there was a re-emergence of a similar situation at Europe's borders,
09:57would be the political costs.
10:01I think we also have to acknowledge, though, of course,
10:03that there are additional budgetary and economic constraints that Europe is under right now
10:08as European countries face pressure to increase their defence spending.
10:13Several countries are entering or facing recessions at the moment.
10:16So that both decreases the political space for countries to respond in a really creative way
10:22and, of course, also creates additional financial constraints as well.
10:27Susan, great to get your insight.
10:29Thanks so much for joining us on Prime News Paris.
10:31We really appreciate your time.
10:32That's Susan Fresca, who is a senior policy analyst
10:36at the Migration Policy Institute's international programme, speaking to us there.
10:41We're going to go to Israel now.