Investigation shows Home Office funds ‘return and reintegration assistance’ and provides equipment and training to Turkish police
has provided more than £3m in funding to Turkish border forces in the last year to prevent migrants reaching the UK, an investigation for the Guardian has found.
In addition to funding, the Home Office has also supplied Turkish border forces, including the National Police and the coastguard, with equipment and training. In June 2022,were handed over by the UK’s deputy high commissioner to the Turkish National Police on the border with Iran. A source with knowledge of the Home Office International Operations team said Turkey had become “a country of emerging importance [to the UK government] in the last two to three years and is now seen as strategically crucial to border securitisation”.
Another source familiar with the work of the Home Office International Operations unit said: “Us paying for stuff like that builds our soft power credentials in other areas, such as possible returns agreements. It’s like a mini FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] inside the Home Office.”
“The Home Office is seen by international partners as quite hostile, quite adversarial,” said a senior government source with knowledge of the department’s operations in Turkey. “The FCDO, on the other hand, is viewed as relatively collegiate and collaborative. In this context, there are obvious tensions in the approach and the culture among staff.”states that one of its key priorities is to “improve our use of upstream illegal migration countermeasures to prevent irregular entry into the UK”.
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