 On the show today, we will have an update from Abdul on the ongoing situation in Gaza. Not much has changed on the ground from reports that are coming in. More Palestinians have been killed. The Israeli onslaught continues. Unabated, also humanitarian aid has not been able to come in in the extent that is required for the over 2 million residents of Gaza. But our lead story today, on the 4th of October, the Pakistan government, this is a story that we have not been able to cover so far on Daily Debrief, announced a decision to expel undocumented Afghan refugees, the deadline for which is the 1st of November and that deadline is now here. What does this mean for almost half of the 4 million Afghans who have sought shelter in the neighbouring country? And Turkey celebrated 100 years of a republic on Sunday with celebrations involving thousands of people across the country marking the historic occasion. A lot has of course happened over the century and Turkey has gone from its founding roots as a secular republic to military coups of course and now the era of Erdogan. What does this historical evolution of modern Turkey tell us and how does it inform our understanding of Turkey's role in the world today? Salam, you are watching Daily Debrief and we are happy to tell you that we are coming to you from the People's Dispatch studios here in New Delhi once again. Hopefully we will be able to access this space and continue our coverage on People's Dispatch. Before we go any further, take a second and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Abdul, before we get into our lead story for the day which is of course Pakistan, if you could give us a quick update on what has been going on in Gaza since we last spoke. As far as the war in Gaza is concerned, of course the ground offensive is continuing and the bombing of course continues and according to the Palestinian Red Cross there have been bombings in and around Al-Quds Hospital which basically threatens the thousands of people who have taken shelter into the hospital apart from those who are injured. Apart from that, as far as the occupied West Bank is concerned, the Israeli raid there also continues and there have been reports that more than six people have been killed in the last 24 hours there. So just to say briefly because of the lack of time, what situation the guardians are facing is by and large similar despite the fact that there was an UN Security Council emergency meeting in which again all the countries including the US have expressed concern about the rising debt toll in Palestine and they have raised concerns about the need of ceasefire. Of course nobody knows when the real resolution is presented what the US will do but at least when it comes to verbal assertions it seems that by and large there is some kind of common understanding on the civilians in Palestine. There is one more thing, during the Security Council meeting the UNRWA had basically kind of officially confirmed the figures which were quote-unquote contested by some of the western countries about the number of people and number of Palestinians in particular children killed by the Israelis in the last three weeks and so. So this is by and large the situation and there seems to be no reason for any hope that there will be any improvement as far as the bombing, Israeli bombing is concerned and even on the humanitarian front there is hardly any improvement. And very little indication that any is coming quickly as Abdullah was pointing out and our next story which is our lead for today on Daily Reef isn't a particularly great story either because four million Afghans call Pakistan home. Many of them have moved there over time as various conflicts took over their home country and economic prospects steadily dwindled. We've reported before on the present humanitarian economic crises in Afghanistan where a large percentage of the population faces critical food shortage. There is mass food insecurity alongside of course the impact of natural disasters and the political sort of still ambiguity, turmoil and issues that remain. In that context Pakistan on the 4th of October, this is a story we've not had a chance to report on on Daily Reef in this period, announced a decision to expel all undocumented Afghan refugees around 1.7 million of them, many of them are already making their way or have made their way thousands back across the border where Abdul prospects remain bleak or are even more bleak than they were whenever these people managed to get out and at least find some semblance of safety as well as livelihood in Pakistan. Well, it's a very difficult situation for more than 1.7 million that is the number of undocumented Afghans in Pakistan and most of them of course not most at least a large number of them around 600,000 of them basically came post the recent takeover of Taliban in 2021. And these are the people of course who are who have the immediate threat of being persecuted if to go back at this moment to their own country because it is assumed that Taliban authorities will take them as hostile or someone who does not favor their route and that is one thing apart from the fact that the more than a million people Afghans who have been living there for decades and now some of them are living there for decades now and they have not been able to get documentation done primarily because a large number of them are really poor in the sense that they do not have enough money to even bribe the quote-unquote official state officials to get some kind of documentation as a proof for their quote-unquote official status within Pakistan. So a majority of them are poor people without any means of livelihood back home and given the fact as you rightly pointed out the overall economic condition in which Afghanistan is today it is in no condition to provide even if it wants to whether we are not sure whether the Taliban government is really willing to work for creating opportunities for these people there even if they are willing to do it they do not have enough resources to do much beyond a point so it is going to be a complete disaster as far as the economic and security if you look at them from the economic and security point of view for the majority of the Afghans who are going back because they do not have any option by the way in fact there are already reports that hundreds of thousands of people have quote-unquote voluntarily left the country in the last four weeks since the order was passed and more and more people are moving towards the Chaman border and other border points and that is one side of it the other side is it is also not clear whether Pakistan authorities are ready to handle the situation given the fact that a large number of Afghans are going to try to cross the border at once and there will be a chaos all across the country from wherever these people are coming whether there are enough means of communication for them how they are moving, do they have enough economic resources to carry whatever essential commodities or essential goods they have carry their families and if there are any how they are able to reach the border whether they will be able to cross it in a human way whether it is possible or not and Pakistan government has even issued if you see their language it is really harsh threatening almost of detention for millions for all these millions of people who did assume that if they are trying to escape moving out of Pakistan and try to remain somehow so they have issued threats they have issued kind of orders to the police their security forces there to create temporary jails, temporary detention centers the condition of those detention centers the Pakistan is not very of course they are not known for any kind of good conditions in the prison and we can assume that it is going to be really a disaster for if the deadline as predicted as announced by the government is literally followed this is going to be another humanitarian crisis that is unfolding in Pakistan in the next few hours tens of millions already Abdul in different ways reeling from that crisis which not only in Afghanistan but also has had a major impact on Pakistan we have talked about the state of the economy there and what is going on with the cycle of IMF funding and loans and debt and issues with of course the government that are going on against the former Prime Minister Imran Khan all of that is going on so where does all of it or this forced expulsion at this point will fit in with what is happening in terms of domestic Pakistani politics or do we just see it as disagreements between the Pakistan government and the Taliban which is now de facto ruling Afghanistan of course not the only reason being the structural problems with Pakistan is facing and their ruling class is being unimaginative being unwilling to explore the possibilities other than looking for ad hoc measures and they think that for their economic problems with Pakistan is facing the kind of restrictions which IMF have imposed has imposed on the different kinds of social kind of social policies which is required given the fact that majority of the Pakistanis are not in a position to kind of depend on market in any way for their basic living in that condition Pakistan government thinks it seems that's the only way one can explain what is happening at this moment that if they are able to kind of create this kind of one of course event which diverts the attention of people to some extent of course it has an impact all over the country because Afghan refugees are everywhere they are in Karachi, they are in Lahore they are in rural areas, they are in urban areas they are not only restricted to the border areas with Afghanistan so it is a national issue it is a national event which basically before the crucial elections which is going to be conducted in next year first month or second month that basically provides a kind of divergence, the other of course instead of addressing the real issues the other thing that is behind this is it also but I don't know how the economic logic works, according to the Pakistani media the overall expenditure which the state will incur if this plan of quote-unquote expulsion of Afghan quote-unquote illegal refugees is carried out more than 2 to 3 billion rupees Pakistani rupees will be spent on this exercise if it is carried out, this is early estimate we don't know exactly what will be the real amount and in a country which is struggling to survive save its economy from complete collapse is a huge amount to waste thinking that if 1.7 million Afghans move out of Pakistan it will help Pakistan economy in some way, this is a complete lazy way of thinking of addressing the economic issues in Pakistan, as far as the security concerns raised by the government in Pakistan at this moment that this illegal Afghans are primary reasons behind the increasing quote-unquote terrorist attacks happening all across the country Tahrir Qataliwan Pakistan is getting support because these illegal Afghans are becoming cadres of it Pakistan has had more terrorist attacks before this new fresh quote-unquote immigration coming in the number of terrorist attacks have not gone down even if Pakistan has earlier taken expelled hundreds of thousands of Afghans in the past has no real impact on the number of attacks the real reasons behind the rising violence against non-state violence in Pakistan is primarily structural and it is a long term reason it cannot be addressed by expelling some of them who are considered to be quote-unquote illegal aliens these are the words seen in Pakistani media or the Pakistani official documents to describe them so security concerns are bogus that is a justification just to carry out this huge event which has a demonstrative effect they think the Pakistani government think and it is also not related to as some of the Pakistani officials are claiming to the recent disagreements between Taliban government and Pakistan the border closing which was the case for months this has nothing to do with that as well it is primarily as I said before an attempt to create an event to divert the attention from addressing the real economic reasons in Pakistan and using the exact playbook and language that we have seen used in every one of these cases Abdul they have copied the texts produced by Europeans and they talk about the refugees there European right wing, extreme right wing and at the same time of course looking back at the history of Pakistan as accepting of refugees and taking credit for or trying to at least take credit in the narrative Abdul we leave Pakistan here for the moment because we will of course also see how this deadline is actually enforced by the caretaker government and then the kind of impact it will have because also on the ground I would assume 4 million people Pakistan is a populist country but these 4 million people will have established ties and it is bound to have a political impact domestic of course an economic impact because refugees also contribute to the economy I don't know how that is skipped all of a sudden but yeah but we will move on to our next story and we will ask you to hang around for a bit to talk to us about that it is 100 years of Turkey which was celebrated the Turkish Republic that was celebrated country-wide in Turkey on Sunday from Mustafa Kemal to Recep Tayyip Erdogan a lot has happened in Turkey as it has I suppose all over the world in that 100 years we are not trying to summarize of course that history unfortunately we don't have the time to sort of get all the details from Abdul on the show but broadly speaking give us some context Abdul of this evolution that has taken multiple different strands sometimes divergent sometimes parallel and where that has brought us to broadly speaking where we are today 100 years later well Turkey today is not the Turkey which Mustafa Kemal had basically had a reason to establish and if you see the there is a complete change not only in terms of the social and political initiatives taken by Mustafa Kemal at the time in 1920s there is also a complete economic shift which has happened in Turkey so a country which was primarily trying to imitate the European modern ways of living and ways of doing things has basically has basically evolved to accept much more conservative set of ideas both politically and socially and if you see the kind of emancipatory project which Mustafa Kemal had when it comes to when it came to women when it came to minorities when it came to a kind of both religious and cultural minorities all those emancipatory projects have been by and large forgotten at least for the majority of the Turkish population today and the Justice and Development Party which has been ruling in Turkey since more than a decade now has basically has kind of led a transformation which basically goes backward on every count Turkey which basically had attempted to give women certain rights in 1930s give women a right to vote and so on and so forth in 2020s comes where it basically denies any existence of femicide and walks out from Istanbul convention which basically asks for nothing more than illegalizing domestic violence and taking action against all kinds of domestic abuse so that one example basically establishes how Turkey has shifted from a complete modernizing society which wants to aspires to be modern to a society which wants to kind of preserve whatever cultural heritage it seems to be so it has become from a modern looking country to a more autonomous kind of going back into the history and so on and so forth this is about cultural aspects only when we talk about economic issues you see that today Turkey is much more kind of regressive when it comes to the rights of the working class in particular the rural presentry in particular there is no attempt to kind of address those issues or very little attempt to do that despite the fact that Turkey is at least for first 7-8 years of Erdogan's rule a booming economy becoming one of the G20 countries in terms of GDP becoming one of the richest countries in the entire West Asia and North Africa despite all those economic achievements when it comes to working class the overall situation has not improved so this kind of mix of course on one side the military coups have stopped happening for the one last attempt was a failure of course in 2016 but and there are claims that the democracy court and liberal democracy has become much more stand-in in society but on the other side the one-man rule has also become much more stronger Erdogan is unchallengeable in Turkey today it has never been the case after of course the initial phases of Kama so this is you can say coming back to a kind of rule it is West of Gokhamal so another kind of example of a mixed legacy which Turkey has gone through for a century in its last century to broaden the context a little bit and look at it from an outsider's perspective Erdogan also carries Turkey's international sort of ambitions, the role of being a regional player we of course talked about the Ukraine grain deal in the past on the show and of course with being a member of NATO plays a major part in that so while perhaps there is a domestic effort to counter these opposing trends sometimes the establishment or the strength of Erdogan's establishment organization what does that mean for the wider region going forward and do some of these evolutionary processes actually play a role or are we sort of starting a different phase altogether in some sense? Well on that front also there is a mixed signals you can say, Turkey initially of course when it came out from the first world war it adopted a policy of neutrality for a while in the case that it did not participate in the second world war completely from that onwards what has Turkey if you see in terms of foreign policy in terms of its regional policy has joined NATO in 50s has tried to become a member of European Union its membership is still pending it is a former applicant of it though European Union which was quite it seems open to adopt except Turkey as a member in the early 1990s or has completely gone back to it there are two reasons behind it of course one despite the fact that Turkey is a NATO member it has you can say taken a very radical step to kind of portray itself as a much more non-aligned country with a foreign policy which is independent to the dictates of NATO on the independent of the dictates of the US in last few years at least and that basically has angered the US and its allies in Europe to basically completely trying to some Turkey's attempts to become or recognized as a European country they have of course used Erdogan's policies Erdogan's politics as an excuse to kind of deny it but it has basically a larger geopolitical reasons behind it and that is basically Turkey's attempts under Erdogan to maintain a balanced relationship with Russia on the one side on the NATO members on the other side and that basically we have seen how during the initial days of the Ukraine war Turkey was the only NATO member or only country which had some kind of influence to kind of start to mediate a talk between the Ukrainians and the Russians Istanbul talks we are talking about so that is one apart from that his non-alignment also comes with Erdogan's attempts to kind of portray Turkey as a regional power and that basically has also reflected in its policies towards Syria its policies towards Libya or trying to intervene at least in the first decade of Erdogan's rule in different other countries in the region even now Turkey's forces are intervening, have been intervening quite regularly in Iraq they are already there in Syria they are already there in Libya so that is an attempt to become a regional hegemon when it comes to military power and portray quote-unquote independence from the US that is one part of it the second part of course is related to basically on and off with other regional hegemon so whether it is Saudi Arabia, whether it is Iran to some extent Egypt there have been attempts to kind of there has been hot and cold relationship with these countries except for Russia one can say Erdogan's foreign policy has not been stable when it comes to other regional and global players in last 20 years and that is something which is of course we cannot pass a judgment at this moment but something which is very interesting when we see the overall evolution of Turkey's foreign policy in the last 100 years unfortunately that's all we have time for today but thank you very much for inputs on actually some pretty complex situations in both these countries as well as the update from Ghazam Shah we will have you back on the show very soon as I was saying right at the beginning of the show we are back today coming to you from the People's Dispatch studios in New Delhi our coverage of these stories and also other major events around the world continues as well as movement news from around the world on peoplesdispatch.org don't also forget to give us a follow on the social media platform of your choice from Abdul myself and the entire team at People's Dispatch thank you very much for watching we will be back with another episode tomorrow until then goodbye