Humanitarian Diplomacy

IHH is one of the pioneering organisations in Turkey and the Islamic geography that uses the concept of "Humanitarian Diplomacy" as an institutional term and carries out these activities.

The activities carried out by many institutions in Western countries under titles such as "humanitarian dialogue", "humanitarian negotiation", "mediation" and "peace" have been gathered under the concept of "humanitarian diplomacy" by IHH.

Humanitarian diplomacy is defined by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which conducts many training and academic studies in this field, as "persuading decision-makers and leaders to act at all times and under all circumstances in the interests of vulnerable people and with full respect for basic humanitarian principles".

The concept of humanitarian diplomacy, which was initially used for dialogue and relations carried out by non-governmental organizations for humanitarian purposes, has been adopted as a method of foreign policies carried out by states for the same purposes in recent years. This has also been influenced by the fact that soft power policies have been brought to the forefront due to the ineffectiveness of military solutions.

IHH's humanitarian diplomacy activities constitute one of IHH's main areas of work along with aid and advocacy. The fact that IHH prioritises the victims and needy people in war and crisis regions in its aid activities has had a great impact on the fact that this is IHH's main field of work. Likewise, IHH's adoption of basic goals such as fighting against poverty and ignorance and resolving conflicts between people has made it necessary for IHH to play an active role in humanitarian diplomacy activities.

Why Humanitarian Diplomacy?

The most important reason for humanitarian diplomacy activities carried out by civilian actors is that humanitarian disasters produce more victimisation and suffering than natural disasters. In other words, wars and crises caused by state and non-state actors cannot be prevented by national and international mechanisms.

Today, civilians have been the target of war and armed conflicts more than at any other time in history. Conflicts taking place on battlefields have moved to residential neighbourhoods, and regular armies have been replaced by non-state armed groups and proxy fighters. While yesterday the concept of war referred to the use of force between states, today it has become the name of asymmetric conflicts mostly within state borders.

As a result, as in the case of Syria, more than 90 per cent of the victims of war have been civilians. Cities have been wiped off the map, millions of people have been killed, injured, forced to flee their homes and deprived of their freedom. Even though the conflicts have taken place within borders, their effects have turned into global crises.

The UN and similar international organisations, which were established to ensure security and stability after the two bloodiest wars in the history of mankind in the last century, have not only failed to ensure world peace, but have also caused crises to deepen due to systemic problems such as veto.

The most important security problem of today, in which humanitarian diplomacy plays a greater role, is non-state armed groups and their irregular activities. Today, there are more than 600 armed groups around the world with different objectives, structures, financial resources, military capacities and motivations. More than 80 million people live in the geographies controlled by most of these groups and under governments without international recognition. Most of the conflicts are between these groups, which are categorised as terrorist, or between them and states. More than 70 conflicts, which have become chronic today, belong to this category of non-state conflicts. The classification of these groups as terrorists has led to the fact that the struggle against them is fought only by military methods. This has led to the ignoring of civilians in the aforementioned regions and humanitarian crises reaching intolerable dimensions.

IHH carries out humanitarian diplomacy activities for the protection of these ignored civilians, their access to humanitarian aid and the resolution of crises that have become chronic. This is more than a need, it is a responsibility and necessity.

IHH's responsibility and mission is based on the commandments of Islam, whose name is peace and which commands to reform, as well as the Foundation Charter, national law and international humanitarian law.

The decision to address humanitarian aid, development and peace together, called "Triple Nexus", which was adopted after the UN World Humanitarian Summit held in Istanbul, further confirmed the importance of the humanitarian diplomacy activities carried out by our Foundation for 30 years.

Humanitarian Diplomacy and Communication with Armed Groups

The most sensitive and complex issue encountered while conducting humanitarian diplomacy activities is the issue of meeting with armed groups. Communication with these groups is considered as meeting with terrorists or supporting them from the perspective of the warring states. Although it is known that the goal of IHH, like all major organisations in the world, is to help civilians affected by war and crisis in crisis zones, this issue is never off the agenda. In these situations, IHH has been forced to choose between leaving millions of people to die or submitting to unfounded accusations, and each time it has paid the price and struggled to keep people alive.

International humanitarian principles (humanity, non-discrimination, impartiality, independence), which IHH also adopts, make it impossible to ignore civilians in need of assistance and even consider it a violation of law. In crisis regions, it is impossible to support people in need of protection and assistance, especially children and women, without the permission of the state or non-state actors controlling the geography where they are located. As in the case of Syria, states within states have been formed in many countries. In these cases, the closure of aid channels from the region of the official authorities to other regions makes multilateral aid interventions, in other words, humanitarian diplomacy activities, essential. In this context, communication with non-state armed groups is limited to humanitarian purposes and does not imply support or legitimacy.

Beyond access to basic humanitarian needs, NGOs are also called upon to mediate in crisis zones, to support peace efforts, prisoner exchanges and to alleviate the suffering of war, and it is impossible to realise these objectives without meeting with state and non-state armed actors.

Regrettably, it is the NGOs of Islamic countries, such as IHH, that have problems in this regard. The same problems and pressures do not apply to Western NGOs that meet with the leaders of all armed groups around the world.

In these situations where civilians are directly attacked and killed, their homes and livelihoods are destroyed, hunger and misery are at an extreme level, health services are inadequate, and lost generations are deprived of education, what is expected from states is not to put pressure on humanitarian actors, but to provide more opportunities for the protection of people.

IHH's Role and Activities in Humanitarian Diplomacy

IHH, which started its activities by helping the victims of the Bosnian war and has been carrying out aid activities in all war and crisis regions since then, has won the love of millions of people. This situation has increased the recognition and credibility of IHH and made it one of the first organisations to be consulted in mediation and humanitarian diplomacy activities.
In this context, IHH has communicated with more than a hundred state representatives and dozens of non-state armed actors and conducted humanitarian diplomacy activities. Tens of thousands of people have benefited from the activities carried out within the framework of basic humanitarian principles, especially independence and transparency.
Our Foundation has applied methods such as persuasion, mediation, negotiation and co-operation with similar actors on the basis of transparency while respecting the right to privacy of the parties. In order to prevent wars and rights violations, IHH took part in press releases and mass actions to raise public awareness and create public opinion.

The activities carried out by our Foundation within the scope of humanitarian diplomacy can be summarised under the main headings as follows.

Encouraging and supporting decision-makers to conduct human-centred policies

Formulating refugee policies, removing obstacles to cross-border assistance, preventing the deportation of refugees to risky countries and improving the conditions of removal centres are some of the activities that can be considered within this scope.

Preventing wars and armed conflicts and stopping them if they have started

In many regions, particularly in Syria and Libya, IHH has fought to prevent wars and end conflicts by conducting negotiations between state and non-state actors.
The ceasefire agreement between Misrata and Zintan regions of Libya is only one of these examples.

Monitoring and supporting peace processes

The biggest example in this regard is the membership of the Third Party Monitoring Mission (TPMT) undertaken by IHH in the Moro peace process. Started in 2014, the mission is being carried out successfully. A similar process is being carried out for Patani.
In Patani, our Foundation supports the ongoing negotiations between the armed groups and the Thai state and the Malaysian government, which is the guarantor.
A similar situation is being experienced in the Afghanistan peace process. Our Foundation participated as an observer in the peace process in Qatar, and then negotiated with the Afghan authorities to facilitate the delivery of international humanitarian aid to the Afghan people.
Our Foundation has also carried out multifaceted activities on the Kurdish issue, which is one of the main problems of our country. With the Kurdish Desk established within the Foundation, all geographies where Kurds live were monitored and negotiations were carried out with decision-makers on issues where rights violations occurred. The work continues in the context of Turkey, Syria and Iraq.
The role played by our Foundation in the implementation of the ceasefire agreements between states in Syria and the settlement of conflicts between armed groups is of vital importance.

Evacuation of civilians

One of the most important issues requiring diplomatic activity in war zones is the evacuation of civilians whose right to life is in danger under siege to safe areas.
The most important operation to be mentioned in this regard is the evacuation of more than 50 thousand people from Aleppo to Idlib, and in parallel to this, the evacuation of people from Fua and Kefriya villages to Aleppo, in which IHH was involved with 250 people.
Similar evacuations have been carried out at many points, particularly from Homs to the north of Syria.
At the beginning of the Libyan crisis, 500 people from many countries, including citizens of the Republic of Turkey, were evacuated to Tunisia and then to their home countries.

Wounded evacuation

International humanitarian law regulates that those wounded in war, even if they are soldiers, must be treated or not prevented from receiving treatment. In practice, even civilians, let alone wounded combatants, are not allowed to access health facilities.
IHH's simultaneous evacuation of Shiite and Sunni wounded civilians under siege in Syria, together with their accompanying persons, was an exchange of wounded of historical significance. The 338 Shiite civilians under siege in Fua and Kefriya villages of Idlib were evacuated on the same day as the Sunni wounded in Madaya and Zebedani regions near the Lebanese border. The operation was coordinated by IHH with the contributions of many NGOs, including Turkey, Syria and the Lebanese state, as well as the UN.

Opening a humanitarian corridor

Opening a humanitarian corridor is one of the priorities of humanitarian diplomacy. Today, wars are fought not only with weapons, but also with many inhumane and illegal methods that inflict pain on people and force them to surrender. One of the most important of these methods is preventing the delivery of aid to war zones, especially to the areas under siege.
IHH has never hesitated to take risks while delivering aid to the most inaccessible areas. The Freedom Flotilla, in which 10 civilian aid volunteers were massacred while delivering aid to Gaza, is one of the most obvious examples of this.
In Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, Myanmar and many other regions, aid has been delivered to people by persuading the parties to the war.

Protection of humanitarian aid workers and volunteers

Humanitarian aid workers and volunteers who do not have official protection status, such as the media or diplomatic representatives, are constantly targeted in war and conflict zones. There are many risks for aid workers and volunteers in hot zones, such as being killed, injured, taken hostage and discrediting.
IHH has carried out intensive diplomacy activities for those who are exposed to the aforementioned risks, especially its own staff and volunteers. The rescue of aid workers arrested in Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Israel, Tajikistan and Afghanistan are some of these examples.

Improving the situation of detainees and hostages

In today's asymmetric warfare, it is known that the conditions of detention, the location of detainees and the treatment they are subjected to can amount to torture. This situation is much more serious in environments where the law does not function or does not exist at all. No one knows how many of the tens of thousands of people in secret detention centres in Syria who are called "missing" are still alive. It is almost impossible to inspect these centres where all kinds of torture are used and to get information.
IHH has carried out humanitarian diplomacy activities in many countries, including Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and Egypt, to examine and improve the conditions of detainees and hostages and to meet their basic humanitarian needs when necessary.

Freeing detainees and hostages

It is pointless to look for a legitimate reason for arresting people or taking them hostage in war zones. Because people who are arrested for political reasons are used as a trump card in war and crisis zones. Such arrests, which are tried to be legitimised with abstract accusations such as terrorism and espionage, do not have legal solutions.
Our Foundation has been working on the applications made by both the official authorities of the countries and the families of the detainees. Thousands of people, including humanitarian aid workers, business people, journalists, political prisoners and civilians, have been freed so far.
Among these, the exchange of 2130 prisoners in Syria for 48 Iranian hostages was realised by our Foundation. This was the largest prisoner exchange in a single day after World War II.
Hundreds of Turkish citizens who were arrested or taken hostage in war zones were also liberated and brought back to Turkey.
An international campaign called "Movement of Conscience" was organised and diplomatic meetings were organised to draw attention to the inhumane conditions of women and children detained in Syria and for their unconditional release. In this regard, meetings were held with political and diplomatic representatives of many countries, a meeting was organised at the UN, and on the other hand, thousands of these women and children were freed by convincing the allies of the Syrian regime.

Family reunification

One of the cruelest consequences of wars and conflicts is the fragmentation of family members. Sometimes this fragmentation occurs within the borders of the same country with no possibility of access, but more often it is family members travelling to different countries as refugees or asylum seekers. For the majority of asylum-seekers staying in different countries, lack of travel documents, lack of visas or financial constraints make it very difficult to reunite them. Similar difficulties arise in repatriating people who have fled conflict in their cities and sought refuge in neighbouring countries.
Perhaps the most complex issue is that of the wives and children of foreign fighters who have travelled to war zones and are left helpless after their deaths. Some of these people have been deprived of citizenship or banned from returning by their countries of nationality. The fact that their children born in their countries of origin are not registered and do not have identity and travel documents makes it very difficult for them to return to their families.
Our Foundation carries out uninterrupted family reunification activities in all the above-mentioned areas. The return of nearly 40 thousand Iraqi citizens who fled the war and took refuge in Syria is among the most important activities of the humanitarian diplomacy unit.
Thousands of citizens of tens of countries have been reunited with their families with the mediation and efforts of IHH.
All these activities are the results of the broad meaning that IHH attributes to the concept of "humanitarian aid". "Humanitarian diplomacy" activities carried out to save people's lives, protect their rights, freedoms and honour are not considered less valuable than "humanitarian aid" activities used in the narrow sense of feeding, sheltering and educating them. On the contrary, priority has been given to the protection of human life and dignity. The latest understanding of the world humanitarian system has confirmed and even conceptualised this point of view of IHH.
In our world where wars and crises continue to deepen, the need for humanitarian diplomacy activities carried out by civilian actors will continue to increase. It is essential to support such activities in order to achieve more results.