Turkey Plans Wall Along Iranian Border to Keep Kurdish Separatists Out

Turkish officials told Hurriyet Daily News on Monday they are planning to construct a wall along the Iranian border to keep out Kurdish separatists from the PKK terrorist organization.

“The PKK has the Maku, Dambat, Navur, Kotr, Keneresh and Şehidan camps inside Iran near the Turkish border. There are some 800-1,000 PKK terrorists in those camps. They enter Turkey, carry out attacks and leave,” an unidentified Turkish official explained. “As a precaution against this, we are going to build a wall along 70 kilometers of the border near Agrı and Igdır, and we will close the rest of it with towers and iron fences.”

The official said the government would also position searchlights along the border, along with cameras to keep 140 kilometers of highway between several eastern Turkish provinces under surveillance. Militants have made efforts to bomb military convoys along this highway in the past.

As Hurriyet points out, the project sounds similar to the wall Turkey already built along part of the Syrian border to repel militants from the PKK and Islamic State.

The Syrian border wall is about 550 kilometers long, covering a little over half of the border between Turkey and Syria. It has been constructed from 6-foot thick, 10-foot high concrete segments weighing about 7 tonnes each, topped with razor wire. Turkish officials said the portable nature of the concrete segments made it easy to construct the wall, adjust its configuration, and perhaps take it down when the security situation improves.

The Turkish Defense Ministry reported that the Syrian border wall was completed in late April. Construction of the wall began in 2014, with a projected cost of about $672 million.

The U.S.-led coalition against ISIS praised Turkey for closing off the border with Syria, calling the measure “very effective in protecting Europe.” Turkish security officials claim the Syrian border wall reduced illegal border crossings by 45 percent from 2015 and even more dramatically reduced smuggling attempts.