Turkey’s Border Security Policy Against Non-State Actors (2016-2019)

Abstract

This paper aims to explain Turkey's border security policy in dealing with non-state actors in Northern Syria. Turkey's policy was carried out after five years of involvement in the Syrian crisis and one month after a failed coup attempt. This study uses the theory of securitization by Buzan that explains the existence of threat and vulnerability factors faced by the state in anarchic international structures. The research method used in this study is a qualitative method with the type of causality analysis. This paper found that threats and vulnerabilities pushed Turkey to launch a series of military operations as border security policies to rid North Syria of ISIS and PKK/PYD/YPG militias to control the adverse effects caused by the presence of non-state actors such as civilian and military casualties, property damage, as well as instability and disintegration. The border security policy confirms the increasingly important role of Turkey in the region while demonstrating Turkey's consistency in pursuing national security interests even outside its territory

Exploring friendship in hydropolitics: The case of the friendship dam on the Asi/Orontes river

“…Iskenderun/Hatay and the areas close to the proposed Friendship Dam locality have become hotspots for conflict(Daoudy, 2020) in the ongoing war in Syria. Most recently, this zone has been considered (albeit unsuccessfully) for demarcation as a "peace corridor" to allow refugees to safely return to Syria(Luerdi & Hakim, 2020). Although the Syria-Turkey Friendship Dam does not yet exist, understanding the institutional processes and motivations for cooperation that led to the declaration of the intent to build such a joint dam can reveal much about the hydropolitical interactions between Syria and Turkey and the role that a friendship dam has, or does not have, in creating transboundary water cooperation, and peace, between co-dam-builders.5.2 | Key events leading to the development of the friendship dam projectSyria and Turkey share three rivers: the Euphrates, Tigris, and Asi/Orontes, and transboundary cooperation between the two countries has a long and undulating history.…”