Turkey arrests senior army officer for human trafficking

Turkish authorities have arrested a brigadier general suspected of human smuggling across the Syrian border, Defense Ministry sources said Thursday.

The sources confirmed reports in Turkish media this week that a brigadier general in charge of regional operations in Syria used his official car to smuggle people through checkpoints unnoticed, earning thousands of dollars in the process.

It was unclear whether he was in the car at the time.

Defense Ministry sources confirmed his detention without specifying when or where it took place.

According to reports, he was arrested in Ankara following an order from the prosecutor of Akçakale district, in Şanlıurfa province, near the Syrian border.

The sources confirmed that an investigation was launched and the officer was forced to retire shortly after.

“Administrative and judicial processes are underway,” the sources said, indicating that they would pursue any offenders within the army, regardless of rank.

Since 2016, Turkey has carried out successive ground operations to expel the YPG from northern Syria and enable the safe resettlement of civilians. In the same region, Turkey has helped Assad's opposition maintain a moderate position and now controls some territories in this region.

Ankara considers the YPG, which dominates the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, to be an offshoot of the PKK, which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 and is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, as well as the United States and the European Union.

The YPG took advantage of the Syrian civil war and invaded several resource-rich provinces with the help of the United States, which billed the group as an ally under the pretext of driving out ISIS.

Over the past nine years, YPG terrorists have forced many residents to emigrate, leading their militants to change the regional demographics, seizing regional oil wells – the largest in Syria – to smuggle oil and generate revenue for their activities.

Syria's civil war has killed more than half a million people since it erupted in 2011 after the Assad regime brutally cracked down on anti-government protests.

Turkey hosts more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees, most of whom are under temporary protection status. Dozens of asylum seekers from Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan also enter the country through its eastern borders before attempting to cross to Europe.

In cooperation with Qatar, Turkey is building 240,000 new homes in 13 different sites in Aleppo province to relocate a third of the Syrians who fled across the border.

So far, some 554,000 Syrians have returned from Turkey to the region, which has been improved with new schools, hospitals, organized industrial sites and better infrastructure. More than 6 million Syrians now live in nearly 107,000 concrete block houses built in Afrin.

The plan provides for an organized return to the border area and through Syria, as part of negotiations with Damascus.

However, attempts at reconciliation between Syria and Turkey have not been successful since early 2023, despite meetings in Moscow. Damascus insists that Ankara withdraw its troops from northern Syria as the main condition for Syrian-Turkish dialogue.

Türkiye says its support for the Syrian opposition armed forces is primarily aimed at ensuring a terrorism-free northern Syria immediately across the Turkish border, which has suffered several cross-border PKK attacks in the past.