Turkey set to recruit 5,000 village guards in anti-terror fight

AKSARAY – Anadolu Agency

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Turkey will recruit 5,000 village guards, Interior Minister Selami Altınok announced Sept. 19, amid an upsurge in violence between the state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Altınok said the guards would be deployed to 22 provinces in the eastern and southeastern areas of the country, where Turkish security forces’ fight against the PKK has intensified since late July.

Turkey currently employs 46,000 village guards under a system established in the 1980s, according to the Federation of Provisional Village Guards.

“The Republic of Turkey can eliminate this trouble and is determined to tackle it,” Altınok said at a veterans’ lunch in the Central Anatolian province of Aksaray. “The fight against terrorism will be maintained in a determined way until the terrorist organization PKK lays down its arms. With the instructions of Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, we are set to start hiring almost 5,000 village guards in the 22 eastern and southeastern provinces to be more effective in the guard system.”