Turkish police use dogs to search belongings of Dutch passengers at Istanbul airport

ISTANBUL

Police on Dec. 25 searched belongings of passengers arriving from the Netherlands with dogs at Istanbul’s main Atatürk Airport, in retaliation to an earlier incident against Turkish passengers at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, Doğan News Agency has reported.

Police units stationed at the airport stopped some passengers arriving from Amsterdam with a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul, using narcotics dogs to search their suitcases.

The passengers were only allowed to enter the country after the process.

The move came after Dutch authorities used dogs to search passengers bound for Turkey at Schiphol Airport.

Previously, similar implementations had been conducted by some European authorities at various airports across the continent, prompting immediate retaliation from Turkish officials.

Over the past few weeks, amateur camera footage had revealed that police used dogs to search the belongings of passengers arriving at Germany’s Düsseldorf Airport from Istanbul.

In mobile phone footage captured by a passenger at the airport, police dogs were seen sniffing the belongings of Turkish Airlines passengers from Istanbul through a metal detector after they left the plane.

Back in October, controversy stirred following a similar incident at Germany’s Munich Airport, in which passengers coming from Turkey were body searched with dogs. Border officials in Turkey retaliated by body searching passengers arriving from Germany with detection dogs.

Also in October, Austrian officials conducted body searches on Turkish passengers with dogs at Vienna’s Schwechat Airport. The move drew an angry response from Ankara, with the Foreign Ministry condemning the “harassment of passengers” by Austrian authorities.