Turkey has completed the construction of a 475-mile concrete wall along her border with Syria a project that was launched in 2015. In 20175, Turkey embarked on building a 513-mile-long wall on the Syrian border, as part of Turkey’s measures to increase border security and combat smuggling and illegal border crossings.
Turkey shares a 566-mile border with Syria, which has been embroiled in a civil war since 2011. The wall was sealed along Turkey’s border provinces of Sanliurfa, Gaziantep, Kilis, Hatay, Mardin, and Sirnak.
The border wall project incorporates physical, electronic and advanced technology layers. The physical layer includes modular concrete walls comprised of seven-ton mobile blocks topped with a one-meter-high razor wire, two meters wide and three meters high, patrol routes, manned and unmanned towers and passenger tracks.
An electronic layer consists of close-up surveillance systems, thermal cameras, land surveillance radar, remote-controlled weapons systems, command-and-control centers, line-length imaging systems and seismic and acoustic sensors. The advanced technology layer of the project includes wide area surveillance, laser destructive fiber-optic detection, surveillance radar for drone detection, jammers and sensor-triggered short distance lighting systems.
The wall is said to be one of the most high-tech security walls in place and is set to improve security in Turkey and prevent cross-border crime and terrorism from the Middle-Eastern neighbors.
