Sir, – Jeannie Zielinski lauds Ireland’s role in keeping an aid corridor open between Turkey and Syria at Bab al-Hawa, but does not explain why the rest of the border is hermetically sealed (“Ireland must use its UN Security Council experience to protect Syrians”, Opinion & Analysis, January 10th).
A 2016 European Union accord with Turkey promised ¤6 billion to provide “humanitarian assistance, education, migration management, health, municipal infrastructure, and socio-economic support” for Syrian refugees.
In fact, much of the money was spent on a 900km border wall between the two countries, the second-longest structure in the world after the Great Wall of China.
It comprises seven-ton concrete blocks, two metres wide and three metres high, topped with a metre of razor wire. Electronic features include close-up surveillance systems, thermal cameras, land surveillance radar, remote-controlled weapons systems, command-and-control centres, line-length imaging systems and seismic and acoustic sensors.
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The EU states have provided the government in Ankara with this security and surveillance technology in exchange for the protection of their borders.
The wall, completed in 2018, together with new barriers along Syria’s borders with Lebanon and Jordan, ended the mass exodus fleeing Syria’s civil war. Paradoxically it prevents aid going the other way.
Turkey’s ministry for EU affairs argues that without the ¤3 billion wall, a further 1.5 million migrants would have arrived in the EU since 2017.
President Erdogan recently won more money from the EU in return for Turkey’s continued cooperation on irregular migration. – Yours, etc,
Dr JOHN DOHERTY,
Gaoth Dobhair,
Co Dhún na nGall.