Turkey has announced that Syrian refugees under temporary protection will be exempted from the requirement to obtain a "work permit" to practice their work inside Turkish territory.

This came in the words of Turkish Interior Minister Mustafa Çevçi during an assessment meeting with representatives of civil society organizations and disaster and emergency management officials (AFAD) in Istanbul to discuss the issue of migration and refugees to the country, which, according to official statistics, hosts about 3.2 million refugees, most of whom are Syrians.

The Turkish minister revealed that the number of Syrians under temporary protection in Turkey currently stands at 2,259,000, indicating that this number has decreased significantly as a result of the acceleration of the pace of voluntary return of Syrians to their country following the fall of the former Syrian regime.

Nearly a third of Syrians under the temporary protection regime were born in Turkey, he said , calling for the issue of migration to be treated as "an issue with long-term social and demographic dimensions, and not just as a temporary population movement."

Cancellation of Work Permit Serves the Turkish Labor Market

The Turkish Interior Minister gave an assessment on the administrative and legal amendments implemented in response to the new circumstances in Syria and the demands on the ground, saying: "Within the framework of the new circumstances in Syria, we are making a comprehensive assessment of voluntary returns, the future of the application of temporary protection, and the mechanisms of organized migration."

"We are interested in the registered employment of all foreigners in our country, including Syrians, and in this context, taking into account the needs of the workforce that Syrians meet, we have eliminated the requirement to obtain a work permit and granted an exemption from work permits to foreigners under temporary protection," he added.

Voluntary, safe and dignified return of Syrians

The number of Syrians returning to Syria from Turkey since 2016 has reached about 1.4 million, and the number of those who voluntarily returned after December 8, 2024, has reached about 667565 people, according to figures from the Turkish Migration Department, and between 200,000 and 250,000 Syrians are expected to return by the end of this year.

Ankara is committed to the principle of non-refoulement enshrined in the 1951 Geneva Convention, which prohibits the return of any person to a place where his or her life or liberty may be endangered, as well as Turkish Law No. 6458 on Foreigners and International Protection. Its fourth article prohibits the return of anyone who has taken refuge in Turkey forcibly, making the mass return of Syrians legally impossible at this time

Turkey and Syria are bound by the 2001 Readmission Agreement , which regulates the return of persons who have entered or resided in the territory of one of the two countries illegally, but the implementation of this agreement requires a restructuring of the current temporary protection regime as the current legal framework does not allow for any mass return.

What is a Readmission Agreement?

Turkey and Syria signed the readmission agreement in September 2001 as part of security arrangements following the Adana Agreement, which stipulated the readmission of each country to its citizens who entered illegally, in addition to the readmission of citizens of third countries who used the territory of one of the two countries as an illegal crossing point, but with the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011 and the severance of relations, the agreement completely ceased to work.

Today, Ankara and Damascus are moving on completely different paths, most notably organizing voluntary returns through electronic platforms that coordinate with land crossings such as Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salama, a mechanism that has allowed the return of more than 1.43 million Syrians over the past years.

New arrangements have also emerged that allow specific groups to move through land ports, in addition to educational and legal memoranda of understanding that facilitate the equivalence of the certificates of returning Syrian students and their integration into educational institutions inside Syria.