Turkey ups efforts to curb irregular migration

ANKARA

Turkey is facing fresh refugee influx from the regional countries but is taking new measures to stop these new migrant inflows, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has said, stressing that migration is a growing humanitarian problem around the world.

Minister Soylu announced new measures to discourage the migrants’ travel inside Turkey while the security institutions are imposing new precautions to stop the arrival of new irregular migrants to Turkey, at a meeting held by the Migration Council on June 9.

Turkey has been trying to manage the irregular migration from Syria, Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries over the past decade, Soylu said, “There are two neighboring countries: Syria and Iraq. PKK/PYD and the DAESH did everything to ruin the order in these two countries. They sought to destroy the integrated authority there.”

In addition to these countries, instability in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Lebanon as well as food crises, global climate change and economic problems push new migration waves, Soylu stated.

The minister repeated that there is no xenophobia in Turkey as the Turkish civilization does not embrace such a thing, noting “But the West has it. Because their civilization is open to this. Our civilization sees every human being as the world itself. This is very clear.”

Some politicians in Turkey want to use that as a tool in the upcoming elections, he stated, “We should not fall into this trap. Migration is the problem of humanity. These people with their babies in their cradles leave their homes because of the war and nothing else.”

Turkey is currently hosting around five million refugees with 3.7 million of them Syrians. The government is under fire for not taking sufficient measures to stop the flow of irregular migrants.

“Some 331.839 irregular migrants have been deported since 2016. Plus, there are those we pushed to leave voluntarily,” he stated.

The government is now taking measures to curb the internal travel of these migrants, the minister stressed. “Starting from today, we are taking new measures for the taxis and TIR parks. The taxis should present papers in instance where they transfer foreigners to other cities. That means they should not help those who want to transfer irregular migrants to other cities,” he stated.

Another measure against smuggling of the irregular migrants is the installation of camera systems in the parking lots of the trucks and large camions, he said.

“With this system, the driver or the owner of the trucks cannot say that they did not know there were migrants in their cargo. We introduce this as part of our strategy against irregular migration,” the minister suggested.

Soylu informed that Turkey is hosting 3.7 million Syrians with temporary protection but there are those who are voluntarily leaving the country. He also said that Turkey has prevented around 2.6 million irregular migrants from entering the country since 2016.