UN refugee agency wishes to see an empty Makhmour camp

“The Makhmour camp is a very sensitive issue, but it doesn’t mean that because it is sensitive we should not say anything,” Michel Gaudé, the outgoing representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Ankara, told Today’s Zaman in an interview held last week, only a few days before his departure from Turkey.

More than 10,000 Turkish Kurds who fled Turkey in the 1990s at the height of clashes between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish state are now settled in the Makhmour camp. Ankara insists that the camp must be closed down, saying it has turned into a training ground for the PKK. An agreement for the voluntary repatriation of the refugees was drafted in 2004, but talks to finalize and put it into effect have failed to materialize.

In April 2007, a Geneva meeting of officials from Turkey, the United Nations and Iraq -- which US officials attended as observers -- to discuss the future of residents of the camp ended without a concrete outcome, as the sides failed to agree on where the Makhmour camp refugees should be settled in Iraq if they refused to return to Turkey.

“Once a colleague of mine was interviewed by a journalist, and he was asked what the best memory he had of his UNHCR career was. And he said, in a provocative manner, it was the day when he set a refugee camp on fire -- because the camp was empty and useless after the repatriation.

This photo, dated 2009, shows houses in the Makhmour camp in northern Iraq, which Turkey claims has become a safe haven for the PKK.

“So I wish one day soon it will be the same for Makhmour and that all the civilians, and I’m insisting on the fact that we are dealing with a civilian population, not with any other component, not with terrorists, not with armed people, but with the civilian population -- we hope that they will be given the possibility to return in safety and dignity and reintegrate in the country. I wished I had been able to set an empty Makhmour camp on fire before leaving,” Gaudé said.

Since November 2008, when a trilateral mechanism was formed between Iraq, Turkey and the US in order to combat the PKK, the Makhmour issue was dealt with by this mechanism almost solely as a security issue.

A small group of Makhmour residents returned home in October as a goodwill gesture to support the government’s ambitious Kurdish initiative -- a democratization plan aimed at expanding the rights of Turkey’s Kurds.

Last week, it emerged that the Diyarbakır Chief Prosecutor’s Office has drafted an indictment after investigating the return of 34 people from the Kandil Mountains and the Makhmour refugee camp.

The indictment pointed out that the Makhmour refugee camp is under the supervision of the UN, “but it is understood that the camp is under the control of the terror organization as information obtained from the people who came from that camp indicated, and it is the terror organization that decides who will go to Turkey from that camp.”

When reminded that the UNHCR has been excluded from the resolution process regarding Makhmour, Gaudé was careful in his remarks. Noting that the UNHCR has open and friendly dialogue mainly with the Foreign Ministry on the issue, Gaudé said: “As the UNHCR, our obsession, and I’m insisting on the word ‘obsession,’ is to find a solution. Worldwide we have plenty of reasons to be frustrated because there are situations where we don’t find solutions.

“For us and I think for many people including Turkey the best solution for the civilian population in Makhmour, 13,000 people, the best solution is to return home, peacefully. And we think that we have a role to play because we have been involved with this group while they have been in exile in northern Iraq ... So these people are your compatriots; the best place for them to live is certainly not a refugee camp. The best place is at home. If an earlier timeframe will be defined that will allow them to return peacefully as normal citizens of a big country like Turkey, we will be happy. If we can help, we’ll be happier.”

Recently, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official stated that for Turkey “the Makhmour camp is associated with a place which was turned into a safe haven for terrorists,” and thus “Turkey’s priority regarding Makhmour is terrorism.” When reminded of those remarks and asked whether he felt satisfied with Turkish authorities contacts with the UNHCR, Gaudé said: “The situation is developing so maybe in a few months we will be asked to help, and our purpose is to help. We don’t want to be a problem; we want to be a solution ... We have been asked for help by the population in Makhmour; they want us to be with them at the time of any return.”