Turkey plans to construct security wall on Iranian border

A Turkish soldier patrols along a wall on the border line between Turkey and Syria near the southeastern city of Kilis, Turkey, on March 2. (Reuters)

ANKARA: After sealing a significant part of its border with Syria with a 560-mile-long barrier, Turkey has now started to construct a security wall along its border with Iran in Agri province, with the aim of preventing border smuggling and illegal crossings by terrorists.
The wall is being built by Turkey’s state-owned construction enterprise TOKI.
In a statement before the latest annual Supreme Military Council meeting on Aug. 2, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced that as a security precaution, the government had accelerated its measures under the “integrated border security program” against terrorist infiltration of Turkey’s southern border.
Prof. Mehmet Seyfettin Erol, head of Ankara-based think-tank ANKASAM (Ankara Center for Crisis and Policy Studies), said Turkey had undertaken the construction of the new wall to help maintain its relationship with Iran.
“This wall is a deterrent against an unauthorized immigrant influx. Although this does not change Turkey’s humanitarian policy for Syrian immigrants, it now intends to follow a more regular approach toward immigration,” Erol told Arab News. He cited rising instability in the region, the emergence of radical terrorist groups, and a network of Kurdish militants spread across several countries as further reasons behind the decision.
“The walls cannot prevent terrorist attacks on their own. However, they deter people, and complement a country’s efforts for border management,” he said.
In March, Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak announced that some 3 million new refugees from Iran — mostly Afghans — could attempt to come to Turkey.
“A total of 30,000 refugees came in through the eastern Turkish provinces of Igdir and Agri in 2016 alone,” Kaynak said during an interview with CNN Turk, adding that about 3,000 unauthorized migrants had already crossed into Turkey from Iranian border since the beginning of 2017.
Metin Gurcan, an ex-military officer and security analyst at the Istanbul Policy Center, said this wall should be seen as preparation for — and part of the transition to — the post-Daesh period.
He said that one of the reasons for Daesh’s emergence was the ease with which the group was able to move people and military equipment across borders, adding that smuggling had proved to be “an important financing tool for extremism.”
“Iran and Ankara have convergent interests in the region for preventing extremism and smuggling,” Gurcan told Arab News.
According to Gurcan, effective management of the border will be beneficial for both countries because it will help prevent the spread of regional Kurdish groups across the Iran-Turkey border. He explained that, for geographic reasons, protecting that border is very challenging.
“Turkey will not only construct a wall, but it will use a technology-intensive approach, with the use of smart towers, thermal imaging, unmanned weapons systems and other surveillance capacities, backed by unarmed drones,” Gurcan added.
The head of the Ankara-based Center for Iranian Studies (IRAM), Ahmet Uysal, said the wall would protect the Turkish people from external security threats linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and other related organizations that are financed by income from smuggling.
“Refugees and asylum seekers from Iran, Afghanistan and even Pakistan also use this route to reach the West,” Uysal told Arab News.
“Iran is well known as a leader of armed militias in the Middle East,” Dr. Ali Bakeer, an independent expert on Iran-Turkey relations, told Arab News. “Tehran has proved that it has the ability and the will to use terrorist organizations to achieve political goals and to blackmail regional players.”
Bakeer added that building a wall on the Iranian border is part of Turkey’s comprehensive plan to secure its borders against non-state actors and terrorist organizations.