For veteran Turkish smuggler, only an army could stop migrant flow

IZMIR, Turkey: Demand has never been higher for the services of Turkish smuggler Dursun, who has taken migrants to Europe for more than decade, and he says nothing short of an army could stamp out his illicit trade.

The EU is counting on Ankara to stem the flow of migrants to Europe after more than a million arrived last year, mainly illegally by sea from Turkey, in the continent’s worst migration crisis since World War Two.

But the task of policing Turkey’s coastline may be beyond its stretched security forces, even with the help of Western allies. Nato sent ships to the Aegean on Thursday to help Turkey and Greece stop criminal networks smuggling migrants.

“Turkey would have to put soldiers on all the beaches,” said the burly Dursun, 30, who has spent three short prison spells in Greece for piloting motor boats full of migrants into Europe. “You have to put thousands of soldiers on the beaches,” he said in the coastal city of Izmir, declining to give his last name.

The Turkish government is under growing pressure from the EU following a 3 billion euro (US$3.3 billion) aid deal for the country last year, aimed at slowing the flow of migrants. Thousands died making the crossingin2015,andtheexodus has also strained security and social systems in some EU states and fuelled support for anti-foreigner groups.

Ankara has stepped up patrols of its 2,600 km Aegean coast, deploying more coastguard and police and increasing the punishment for the smugglers it catches, especially if their actions led to the deaths of migrants.

While Turkey boasts the second-largest army in the Nato alliance, it is also fighting Kurdish militants in the southeast and has a heavy military presence on its border with Syria where a civil war has raged for five years, the main source of the current refugee crisis. Namik Kemal Nazli, governor of the Ayvalik district near Izmir, said a big problem facing authorities was the fact that much of the coastline was remote and relatively unpopulated, with many places where smugglers could hide. — Reuters