Types of International Protection in Turkey

In accordance with the 1951 Geneva Convention, the refugee status is the legal and international protection status submitted to people that come from European countries (countries belonging to the Council of Europe) but applied for international protection in Turkey due the events ongoing in their home countries. The fact that the refugee status is only given to persons coming from countries that are part of the Council of Europe is rooted in the geographical limitations of the 1951 Geneva Convention.

Conditional refugees are persons who – as a result of events occurring outside European countries and owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, na­tionality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion and are outside the country of their nation­ality – are unable or, owing to such fear, are unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of former habitual residence as a result of such events, are unable or are unwilling to return to it. If such conditions apply, those persons shall be granted a condi­tional refugee status upon completion of the refugee status determination process. Conditional refugees shall be allowed to reside in Turkey temporarily until they are resettled to a third country

A foreigner or a stateless person, who neither could be qualified as a refugee nor as a conditional refugee, shall nevertheless be granted subsidiary protection upon the status determination, because if returned to the country of origin or country of [former] habitual residence this person would:

a) be sentenced to death or face the execution of the death penalty;

b) face torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;

c) face serious threat to himself or herself by rea­son of indiscriminate violence in situations of international or nationwide armed conflict.