THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TURKISH GOVERNMENT AND HUMANITARIAN INTERNATIONAL NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS BETWEEN 2011 – 2019

Abstract

The relationship between the Turkish government and HINGOs has been and still full of tensions, misperceptions, lack of trust and many other gaps that started with the beginning of the Syrian refugee’s influx to the country following the conflict in Syria back in 2011.Until today the relationship status between both actors still missing the cooperative basis in which the relationship dynamics should rely on in this context. this research aims at understanding the relationship dynamics between the Turkish government and international foreign humanitarian aid providers who started to operate in the Turkish territories with the beginning of the Syrian crisis, bringing in a completely new concept to the Turkish context, which is the HINGOs sector or in other words the foreign humanitarian aid actors. This vague mysterious relationship was not tackled by scholar’s due to the sensitivity of its obvious circumstances, the Turkish government’s suspicious perception of HINGOs and the operational challenges faced by HINGOs because of the governments restrictions and lack of experience in dealing with the humanitarian sector. The research is qualitative based in terms of methodology, where set of unstructured interviews were conducted with high level government representatives related directly to the researched subject, and with HINGOs representatives who liaise directly with Turkish government’s different institutes for operational, and policy discussions purposes. The interviews aimed at understanding the mutual misperception, relational gap, after the failed military coup of 2016’s policy confusions, challenges and cooperation opportunities. The main findings emphasize that the Turkish government acknowledge the fact that they lacked and still lack experience in dealing with the humanitarian crisis. There is no systematic approach or specialized department that efficiently organizes the relationship between both actors until today, this is the main reason behind the huge relational gaps facing HINGOs and the Turkish Government in working cooperatively. The main recommendations in this research includes a suggested paradigm of cooperation that will contribute to enhancing the relationship dynamics, bridge the gaps and support the humanitarian space. Hence increase Turkey’s ranking amongst the countries piloting humanitarian work in later stages.