The initial task of the UNHCR was to help foreigners apply for or receive the refugee status under the 1951 Geneva Convention. Over time, however, UNHCR’s mandate has been expanded through UN General Assembly resolutions. Nowadays, in addition to its work for conventional refugees, the UNHCR has been mandated by the UN to monitor and protect internally displaced persons (IDPs), stateless persons, vulnerable groups, persons with special needs and illegal immigrants, even if they do not fall within the definition of refugee set forth in Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Geneva Convention. UNHCR also deals with displacement due to urbanization, collapsed states, fragile states or threats to regimes. As a result of the expansion of its activities beyond its mandate, UNHCR plays an active role in the aforementioned matters, even in countries without a conventional refugee crisis. Turkey is a country that has hosted the largest number of asylum seekers in the world, and is currently providing shelter to around four million registered temporarily protected Syrians. Moreover, the number of applications made in Turkey for international protection will likely increase, not decrease, in future. Turkey also prevents illegal immigration to Europe and thus plays a key role for the protection of Europe’s borders. Despite the fact that Turkey has been facing a mass influx of Syrians and other complex migration-related problems, it has been left alone by the international organizations and other states. While Turkey was among the negotiators and original signatories of the 1951 Geneva Convention, it continues to maintain a geographical limitation to the applicability of the Convention to the refugees coming from non-European countries. Hence, Turkey is not obliged to apply 1951 Geneva Convention to refugees coming from outside Europe. Foreigners coming from non-European countries and claiming refugee status are treated as “conditional refugee” under Turkish law. They are granted conditional refugee certificates which enable them to stay in Turkey until they find a safe third country with UNHCR’s help. Therefore, under the current Turkish legislation, there is a distinction among foreigners who claim international protection according to their country of origin. Foreigners coming from European countries and meeting the conditions set forth in Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Geneva Convention can be provided refugee status. Save as temporarily protected Syrians, under Turkish refugee law, foreigners coming from non-European countries are not conventional refugees but “conditional refugees”. Conditional refugees can stay in Turkey until they find a safe third country with UNHCR’s help. That is the reason why the UNHCR offices in Turkey have been playing a leading role in resettling non-European asylum seekers to safe third countries, particularly until 2008. However, this role of the UNHCR has gradually diminished since the commencement in 2008 of the preparatory work of the Law No. 6458 on Foreigners and International Protection, which was published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Turkey on April 11, 2013. Indeed, since September 2018, the UNHCR operations in Turkey have been reduced to providing counseling and relief services. Activities to assist in voluntary repatriation and resettlement from Turkey, as specified in the UNHCR’s Statute, are now hardly carried out. The tasks specified in the Statute of the UNHCR also cover assisting governmental and private efforts to promote voluntary repatriation. Further, UNCHR’s tasks also include resettlement of refugees, as determined by the UN General Assembly, and to the extent UNCHR’s financial resources so allow. Turkey can, for the time being, cope with its own responsibilities in the field of asylum. However, considering the numbers, this burden is not sustainable. At a point in time where Turkey is in serious need for resettlement and voluntary return assistance, limiting UNHCR’s operational activities in Turkey to counseling and relief services simply amounts to transforming the UNHCR into an association such as the Red Crescent. Moreover, counseling and relief services provided by the UNHCR have been affecting Turkey negatively, and have turned Turkey into a target country for illegal immigration. Limiting the UNHCR missions and operations in Turkey to counselling and relief services is contrary to the Statute of UNHCR itself. We believe that UNHCR’s main task in Turkey should be resettlement and providing support for voluntary return. It should also force the other states to take steps on “burden sharing” or “responsibility sharing”. This would pave the way for diminishing, to a certain extent, the number of refugee and temporarily protected Syrians in Turkey, as well as the social, economic, political costs incurred by Turkey, and allow the government of Turkey to provided better assistance to foreigners who really need it. Otherwise, it will be difficult to deal with the problems arising from the increasing number of foreigners, the ensuing costs, and the reaction of Turkish citizens, in the near future.