Turkey’s government has sent village guards to the border with Iran and deployed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to help stop ‘irregular’ migrant flows from Afghanistan.
Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said Turkey is also extending a wall along the Iranian border to reinforce security.
Turkey has successfully managed irregular migration from Syria and other parts of the Middle East, Soylu said on Twitter on Wednesday, responding to criticism from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) that the government was unable to control a recent influx of Afghan migrants.
The government has deployed an additional 500 village guards and 82 armoured vehicles to the border to boost security, Soylu said. He said Turkey had prevented the illegal migration of 505,000 people in 2020 and an additional 253,000 this year.
Turkey has created a force of thousands of village guards since the 1980s to help battle militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). They do not constitute an official part of the Turkish army or security forces.
Ahval