Turkey is completing a 560-mile 10-feet high border wall with Syria to stop the flow of foreign fighters, and stop terrorists from entering the country.
“As far as our national security is concerned, the increase of border security with Syria carries huge importance. With the completion of the wall, our border will become more secure,” a Turkish official told state-run media Wednesday. “Construction will be completed within five months,” a Turkish official clarified to Reuters citing construction concerns in the winter months.
The wall is said to have cost nearly $650 million and will be topped with razor wire.
The U.S. and NATO have been pressuring Turkey for years to seal its border with Syria to interdict the foreign fighter flow to ISIS. The perpetrators of the Istanbul Airport attack in June are thought to have exploited the Turkish-Syrian border. Experts fear as ISIS loses territory, more and more fighters will seek refuge outside of Syria and create terrorist cells.
Turkey launched a military incursion into northern Syria in August to both sweep ISIS terrorists out, and to prevent Syrian kurds from creating a de-facto state along its border. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan regards Syrian Kurds as big of a threat to the country as ISIS.
FBI Director James Comey echoed these fears before Congress Tuesday, saying “There will be a terrorist diaspora sometime in the next two to five years like we’ve never seen before.” Turkey’s border wall may prevent this diaspora from reversing the flow, and gaining access to the west as ISIS continues to lose territory.
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