The Role of the Hungarian National Police in the Transformation Process of the Turkish Border Policing System EU Twinning Project in Turkey

Hungary has always played a leading role in the theoretical and practical implementation of the Schengen Acquis and the Schengen extension process. One of the best examples may be the implementation of the European Union funded twinning project titled “Action Plan on Integrated Border Management-Phase 1”. The aim of this essay is to give additional information to the present border policing situation and the border security organizations in Turkey. We will look at the process of establishing a new Border Guard organization and the joint efforts performed by the project and the beneficiaries in the launch of the new Integrated Border Management System (later on IBM) in the county. We can conclude that the IBM project combined the best respective EU theories and practices successfully.

forces there. This Eu Agency has been organizing and implementing a variety of border policing operations at the Greek side of the Greek-Turkish border line. According to the results of such operations a certain decrease may be measured in the number of illegal border crossings during the operations and some subsequent periods.
The European union has a common security interest that sets, for the candidate countries such as Turkey, requirements involving the capabilities of the border control system. Thus Turkey has had to strengthen their border control to a proper level and at the same time the used methods of border control have had to conform to Eu and Schengen Acquis standards as well.
What was the previous border control system in Turkey and what changes had to be performed?

Turkish authorities involved in border control and surveillance
At the project inception, five dominant organizations dealt with border control: the Turkish Land Forces and the National Police in a wider sense of general security, as well as the Gendarmerie, the Coast Guard and the Customs Department have their specific law enforcement area of responsibil-ity concerning the border. Moreover, many other authorities fulfil certain functions with the border traffic control with or without permanent representation at the border area. One of the most significant bodies is the Ministry of Health and their subsidiaries, dealing with general human health risk detection and epidemic prevention. The Ministry of Agriculture has veterinary and phytosanitary inspectors at 4 Border control consists of border guarding ("green" and "blue" border surveillance), border traffic control, and border related criminal investigationsee details in Zagon Csaba: Border traffic risk assessment. In. AArMS Vol. 11, No. 2 (2012) pp.273-285.
the borders as well. They also play an important role in food safety and protection of the country's flora and fauna. Accession to the Eu was set as a strategic objective of Turkey. Among many conditions Turkey needs to achieve membership is to develop their border control system, and they are supported by the Eu through several assistance forms. The Eu institutions and the individual member states have been providing significant assistance and have launched twinning projects as well.
The philosophy of the twinning projects is that the beneficiary country's experts and the as-sisting member state's experts work together on achieving the project aims. They develop and implement advanced solutions for the problems that the beneficiary country is facing, which are mutually acceptable for both sides.

The Turkish Land Forces
In the 1980s, due to the increased threat of armed terrorists the Land Forces took over the tasks and responsibilities of guarding the land borders all over Turkey from the Gendarmerie.
According to Law No. 3497, the burden of the land border security and protection were moved under the responsibility of the Turkish Army's Land Forces. The Land Forces' sub-ordinate bases dealing with border guarding dislocate relatively close to the borderline. Due to the specific geo-graphic reasons and other influencing conditions, the network of these barracks was positioned not more than 3-12 km away from the state border. However, the current dislocation is almost completely devoid of risk analysis results. For instance, there are some barracks in a 6-8 hours patrolling distance from the border. Some of them are in fact, positioned on the top of a hill.
In practice, soldiers carry out border protection, and the general method has remained pa-trolling two-kilometres-wide border security zones. The respective personnel are supplied with technical equipment mostly developed for military purposes (binoculars, night vision devices, ra-dar devices etc.).
At the Iraqi border, the border zone is wider than two kilometres and strengthened by solid minefields and other technical barriers to cause serious difficulties for any kind of movements involving illegal migrants.
The Land Force Command is located in Ankara, but the organization is decentralised and well fragmented into regional and territorial tiers. Individuals intercepted in the border zone by the pa-trols of the army, will shortly be handed over to the Police for the necessary follow-up procedures. Although there is a significant military role in border surveillance, facts and figures show illegal migrants crossing the Bulgarian and the Greek border, where the procedures have simply proven unsatisfactory. According to the Frontex Situation Centre (FSC) the number of those people who committed successful illegal border crossings is more than significant.

The Turkish National Police
The border traffic control tasks at all border crossing points (land, water, air) are carried out by the Turkish National Police. This organization belongs to the Ministry of Interior's Security Directorate.
The individual border crossing points (BCPs) are under a Sub-Governor or a Governor. Due to the unique administrative structure of Turkey that conserved certain traditions, all law enforcement agencies operating in a particular province are subordinate to the Sub-Governor or Governor. Cer-tainly, the professional management of the BCPs is clearly provided by the Police's own manage-ment system, however, Governors are entitled to set priorities for law enforcement. 81 provinces cover the jurisdiction area of the Turkish National Police. It includes approximately 400 towns that cover about 8% of the area of the country. The National Police is responsible for the country's internal security and the coordination and implementation of the integrated border security.
In the country there are 1,197 police stations, 756 districts and 81 Provincial Directorates. The central body is located in Ankara; the total number of police staff reaches the figure of 250,000.
This central organization includes the Immigration-and Asylum-; and Border Police Depart-ments, whose main tasks cover the examination of visas, residence permits, and asylum appli-cations. It is also responsible for the reception of asylum seekers and refugees, naturalization proceedings, for the coordination of the national notification system and to take and implement measures against trafficking in human beings.
In June 2010, a system of biometric passports was introduced in Turkey. The passport-related tasks were excluded from the scope of the Police. A civilian unit was set up within the Ministry of Interior and they are dealing with issuing passports.
Police have a Contraband-and Organized Crime Department that deals with, among other tasks, organised illegal migration, smuggling in human beings and human trafficking, as well as performing certain anti-terrorist activities.

The Gendarmerie
The Gendarmerie works according to the Law No. 2803. The Gendarmerie has double the area of responsibility. One of their tasks is like that of a law enforcement organization's they are responsible for the maintenance of security and public order. Their second task is to act as a subordinate organ of the General Staff during emergency and wartime situations and to support the Turkish Armed Forces.
The Gendarmerie forces are subordinates of the Minister of the Interior, but according to this organizational character, they have closer ties to the military organizations than the Police have.
The Gendarmerie forces consist of professional and conscript soldiers, they carry out orga-nizational tasks. The area of responsibility of the Turkish Gendarmerie is to perform extra urban police tasks, so their territory of operation is comprised of 92% of the country. The Gendarmerie is responsible for guarding an approximately 200 kilometre long section of the Turkish -Iraqi border. The section of the Gendarmerie that is committed to the border guarding tasks is composed of conscript soldiers and led by the professionals.
The total number of staff is 150,000, where approximately 6,000 people are involved in carry-ing out the duties of border policing (guarding).
At the Iranian border, the transfer of border guarding functions to the Army is still in progress today.

The Turkish Coastguard
The Coast Guard, as an armed law enforcement organization, in peacetime is under the Ministry of the Interior, during an armed crisis and wartime this organization belongs to the Turkish Navy. A sound majority of the organization's staff have served in the Navy. Inter-service mobilization is very common between the two organizations; the Coast Guard is in close contact with the Navy.
The operational area of the Coast Guard covers the costal waters, which belong to Turkey (Mediterranean Sea, Aegean Sea, Black Sea, Marmara Sea): The total area is 377,172 km 2 .
The organizational structure of the Coast Guard includes a Central Headquarters (Ankara), a Black Sea region Command (Samsun), a Sea of Marmara and Straits Command (Istanbul), an Aegean Sea region Command Headquarters for the Mediterranean region (Mersin), an Air Headquarters (Izmir), a Training Command (Antalya), and a Supply Command Centre (Istanbul).
The estimated number of Coast Guard staff is 3,250 people; they are all professionals. This orga-nization is only responsible for the maritime borders and does not have power at sea border crossing points. The control of the sea border crossing points is carried out by the Turkish National Police.
Act No. 2692 defines the main tasks for the Coast Guard. It is the competent law enforcement body on the sea, they are responsible for guarding and protecting Turkey's seas (waters), for the protection of life and property at sea, also in territorial waters their task includes the disarmament of refugees and delivering them to the competent authorities; on the high seas they are entitled to prevent all kinds of smuggling, checking ships and boats, to perform search and rescue activities and also to fulfil certain environmental protection functions.

The Customs Service
The Customs Deputy Secretary of State has responsibility in checking of vehicles and goods cross-ing the borders, in detection of smuggling of commodities and they are responsible for the security of border crossing points.
According to the Customs regulations, the main duty is to prevent, detect and investigate all kinds of smuggling activities at the borders. Turkish Customs is subordinated to the Prime Minister's Office. The customs service has extensive international and domestic cooperation with other orga-nizations. At the border crossing points, Customs is also responsible for the maintenance of order.
At the Turkish border crossing points, the Turkish National Police were the single agency responsible for the control of travel documents. All the other functions are carried out by the Cus-toms and certain specific authorities (like Human Health, Veterinary, Phytosanitary Services etc.).
The situation, prior to the twinning project, had some weaknesses in the field of information exchange between border organizations. Each organization is committed to achieving its mission according to their best knowledge, but poor cooperation reduces the effectiveness of the efforts of the organizations. related to the border issues, if Turkey wants to be compliant with the Eu requirements, they should modernize the regulations, the organizational structure of border policing and working methods in Turkey.

TR-07-IB-JH-04. Action plan on Integrated Border Management Phase 1. European Twinning Project
The Eu twinning project formed a cornerstone of this development process for the Turkish border control system. The participant member states and the beneficiary country's project management worked in a joint manner in very close cooperation. The experts from both sides worked very effectively in order to prepare the project materials and achieve the expected results. Throughout the project implementation, the project management organized seven study visits (in the uK, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Poland, and two in Hungary) where altogether 61 Turkish experts could gain experience on the spot about the best practices of the Eu countries' border protection.
During the 18 month frame the project was rolled out, the Development and Implementation Bureau for Border Management Legislation and Administrative Capacity (IBM Bureau) and the Project Office organized 23 workshops, 2 seminars, and 9 roundtable discussions. Altogether 29 days were spent for training of the beneficiary's law enforcement staff. Within the frameworks of the training activities, the experts of the member states trained 150 experts on IBM from the beneficiary, some in the "train the trainer" manner, about know-how and the best practices of border policing from the Schengen Accord and the European union. The IBM Phase-1 project manage-ment invited 47 experts to take part in the development work specified in the project's activities.

Figure 2. Sources of Experts
The project contract initially consisted of 30 activities, but during the implementation phase, the project management included three additional activities considering the specific development needs of the beneficiaries. The experts produced 33 activity reports and specified in detail the leaps forward. At the beginning of the project, the experts established an e-learning system in order to boost the development and training activities of the participants and also to demonstrate the project results for all partners and stakeholders. This IT system (available at www.bordman.net) provided non-stop accessibility for all registered users during the entire time frame of the project.

Figure 3. Main Project Components
The experts worked on setting up a basis for the establishment of a non-military, professional Border Guard organization according to the National Action Plan on the Implementation of Tur-key's Integrated Border Management Strategy.
During the project implementation phase, all activity reports had to be submitted to the Turkish Project Management; these papers were negotiated and accepted as satisfactory.
The experts prepared all necessary and relevant materials, handouts, guidebooks etc. for the establishment of the Turkish IBM System and Turkish Border Guard. The Draft Border Guard Law and the future Border Guard Organizational Chart, the structure of Integrated Border Management were not accepted until now. Without these decisions the project results were dormant.
In spite of these complications, the project aims and the mandatory results were achieved; the project management handed all the relevant documents to the beneficiary organizations and the ex-perts, who clearly benefited from these documents during the establishment efforts of the Turkish Border Guard organization and the Turkish Integrated Border Management System.

The main efforts for the modernization of the Turkish border policing system
According to the Turkish National Action Plan of Integrated Border Management, the preparato-ry work started in 2008 and consequently, the Ministry of the Interior established an Integrated Border Management Office. Two fundamental missions were set for this unit. Firstly, they had to carry out the coordination tasks in relation to the forming of the Turkish Border Guard Agency and secondly, to start the preparation work of the Integrated Border Management System.
Before the project was launched, the Turkish Prime Minister invited the potential participant ministries and state agencies, having relevance in border control, and asked if they support the transition to the concept of an integrated border management system and a future Border Guard organization. This survey indicates a very high-level coordination and support for the Twinning Project and also a clear commitment to cooperation for the mission's success. In addition the Prime Minister established an IBM Coordination Board that had a session each quarter year and screened the developments of ongoing and future assignments.
The Turkish Government realised soon that the new Border Guard organization and the new border control concept would add strong benefits to the effectiveness of Turkish border protection through their effective coordination and cooperation means and methods covering all traffic modes and border types (i.e. land, sea and air borders).
One of the core parts of the IBM Phase-1 Project is to assist in the education of the border staff. In the project 45 trainers were educated in the 'train the trainer' manner and an additional 150 staff members of various Turkish agencies have been trained in the new methodologies. These training course participants have been marked as the future staff of the new professional and civilian (i.e. not military) Border Guard organization selected to build up the IBM concept. Founding such an organization certainly takes time and coordination at each development step.
When the Turkish Border Guard has formed, the work will focus on one border section for a pilot project. For this role the Turkish-Bulgarian border was selected. After completing that, according to the roadmap, the new organization will take the responsibility over other border seg-ments step by step. At this time, when the IBM structure is functioning properly, the Common risk Analysis Centre is to be established, in order to allow the benefits of risk based policing to be added into it. In this structure all of the border agencies and relevant organizations will work together and provide the results of their joint efforts.
As a result of the common work of the Eu experts and Turkish partners, a Draft Law on the Turkish Border Guard was drafted in December 2010 and submitted to the Turkish Ministry of the Interior in order to start the legislation process. In parallel to this work the experts worked on the preparation and implementation of the main elements of the project, like the adaptation of the Schengen Catalogue, the elaboration of a comprehensive training strategy, and the preparation tasks of the study visits (altogether six occasions).
The project concluded the proposed National Action Plan on IBM and updated the road map that describes the forthcoming assignments in great detail. The final summary report introduced the proposed Turkish integrated border management system.

The key developments of the project
Project management worked in very close cooperation with other projects such as the Nr. Tr 080210, "Action Plan on Integrated Border Management-Phase 2". The aim of the 2nd phase of the IBM project was to enhance the solid risk management capacity of the border agencies and to strengthen further the integrated border management system in compliance with the best Eu prac-tices. Not surprisingly, this project had very close cooperation with the IBM Project Phase 1 that resulted in an intensive exchange of information between the managers.
The technical assistance tasks generated by the founding of the Turkish Border Guard organiza-tion was delegated to a separate project Nr: Europe Aid/127481/D/SEr/Tr, "Technical Assistance for Development of the Border Management roadmap and Execution of a Border Gate Survey in Turkey" However, this technical assistance function was based very much on the results of the two IBM project phases.
Parallel with these projects the training functions were performed in a German-led project Nr.: Tr080213 "Training for Border Police". The aim of this project was to develop the training and education capacities for the future Border Guard Service.
The earlier mentioned projects were important cornerstones in the modernization process of the Turkish IBM. During the implementation of the projects, the Project resident twinning advisers shared information and supported the work of experts in order to achieve the common goals with the partners.
The beneficiary country organized several task force meetings to smooth the project implemen-tation. During a 18 months period, there were three meetings of this forum. These meetings were ideal forums to talk with the Turkish project leaders and the IBM Coordination Board and also for the IBM Bureau, which could provide detailed information on the project developments.

Project developments
During the whole project implementation the experts of the member states and the beneficiary country worked in very close cooperation. All elaborated documents, results and presentations have been attached to the appropriate mission reports, and anybody who these papers might con-cern can benefit by accessing them through the e-learning system.
The experts of the member states made contributions to the preparation of the relevant draft Border Guard Act by considering the Eu and Schengen regulations. The draft was further im-proved by the beneficiary's expert team in accordance with the Turkish requirements. We all considered it an important part of the assistance project that the Eu and Schengen Acquis know-how and best practices, suggested by the twinning advisers be taken into account by the beneficiaries with the necessary "fine tailoring" according to the peculiars of Turkey. Both parties agreed that it was not enough to hand over good solutions for providing excellent performance in border control from the Eu member states, but the necessary attention had to be paid to lo-calization as well.
The experts developed a comprehensive Training Programme for the participants of the Turk-ish border management system. This training program consisted of 14 linking IBM and border policing topics. During the preparation period the AARMS (12) 1 (2013) 112 project management consulted with the relevant institutions on the methodology and the training content. The training modules were supported with interpretation. The training materials became available from the first instance in the e-learning system on a bilingual basis. This methodology broke through the "language barriers" and allowed in the same time unlimited access to the training stuffs for the trainees. During the implementation of the 6 th component, for instance, the Turkish Project Management initiated an update of the Border Guard Training Strategy Paper that was welcomed by the project. So the "Training Strategy of Turkish Border Police" materials were elaborated with the sound consideration of the Schengen Catalogue, and an adaptation of the implementation plan was also compiled accordingly.
As part of the final activity, the experts carried out an overall evaluation of the project achievements. Within the framework of this particular desk-based study, they summarised the project accomplishments and besides, they elaborated a "Book of recommendations for the Turkish IBM".
According to the detailed performance assessment the project implementation and the project team reached mandatory results, and the representatives of the beneficiary country received all the documents necessary to establish a new Border Guard Service and other IBM organizations.

Project visibility
During the length of the project implementation, the project leaders consumed most of the visibility costs; all required items are prepared according to the eU manual such as project logo, flyers, newslet-ters etc. During the study visits, these materials were shared with colleagues of 6 European countries.
The Kick-Off Meeting and the Final Conference received strong publicity from all stakeholder countries and very positive attention from high governmental representatives from both sides of the project.
The Hungarian "Police" magazine published articles about the milestones of the project achievements three times. The Turkish media attention was also significant. Various newspapers gave information about the project, in total 4 times.
Frequent update information was regularly provided to all registered users of the e-learning system, the project management informed all registered participants about the project results. The e-learning solution was proven very useful in the exchange of information with targeted groups of IBM.
The homepage of the Ministry of Interior published the most important information package about all the project activities. Within the duration of the project, 9 Project Newsletters were also issued and sent to all the project participants in electronic format and in hard copy to certain high-ranking participants. It means that the project management prepared a new newsletter issue every two months. The reactions to these activities were very positive.

Follow-up and sustainability
The beneficiary country enjoyed the advantages and the opportunities from the project results. Beneficiary institutions have gained comprehensive knowledge about integrated border manage-ment concepts and the experience on its implementation in the Eu countries.
The work on preparing the Draft Law on New Border Guard Agency and Draft road Map on Integrated Border Management already started while the project activities were still going on. The experts, who took part in the project, have consistently contributed to these projects. It is expected that these two documents will be finalized according to the needs of the Turkish border manage-ment system in the near future.
The beneficiary country's administration has already started the implementation process. After the project closing event the draft road map will be prepared in the parallel project of "Tr0702.15-02/001 Technical Assistance for Development of the Border Management roadmap and Execution of a Border Gate Survey in Turkey" by taking the twinning project results into consideration. After that, it needs to be endorsed by the competent authority. The implementation of the road map will lead to the establishment of the integrated border management system in Turkey.
The Border Guard Agency will act as the key agency that implements the concept of integrated border management. The draft law has to be submitted to the parliament for endorsement accord-ing to Turkey's National Program for Adopting the Eu Acquis.
All necessary measures have been taken in order to achieve the mandatory results. The required initiatives started a few years ago in setting the aim to establish an IBM system in Turkey. Together with the creation of the Turkish IBM and Border Guard, another important project started the establishment of the training system for the future Border Guard staff. The leading country of this Twinning Project was Germany. This 15 monthlong project started in December 2011.
Project participants were striving to avoid parallel results, so the three resident twinning advisers met and coordinated the process regularly in order to share the necessary information. The result of the joint work (coordination and common expertise) is the "Strategy Paper for Turkish Border Guards".
According to the ideas of the Turkish Minister of the Interior, the Turkish Police Academy set up the Border Guard Faculty in the academic years of 2010/2011. The first students finished their Border Policing studies in 2012. According to the longterm visions there is a plan to establish the independent Border Guard Academy, which ensures the new organization's border guard officer needs in the future. The establishment of the training institutions of the non-commission border guard officers is however still on the agenda.

Final recommendations
After the political decision, according to expert opinion there is still a need to appoint the leaders of the future Turkish Border Guard Agency and to continue the establishing process. In this aspect, a strong cooperation is vital between the Turkish IBM related authorities. According to the road map they will complete the transformation process within a 10 year frame.
Final recommendations: 1. Turkey should adopt a model of IBM that meets the Eu/Schengen requirements with a single border law enforcement agency (Border Guard), under the supervision of the Minister of the Interior. This agency has to act as the leading organization of IBM activities. 2. The IBM model for Turkey should be based on a single civilian (non-military) organization.
The short term experts recognised that due to the exceptional circumstances on the southern and eastern borders, Land Forces and Gendarmerie will be continuously required for surveil-lance duties during the full implementation of this model.
3. The establishment of coordination and cooperation bodies at all levels is essential to ensure effective inter-agency communication. 4. A new set of primary legislation related to IBM is required. 5. The changes, improvements and modifications to the Draft Border Guard Act, suggested by the short time experts, shall be adopted. 6. The Draft Laws on IBM and Border Guard must be finalised as soon as possible. 7. The exercise of replacement and amendment of other relevant legal documents is to be taken forward and reviewed regularly. 8. A four level organizational and managerial command system (central, regional, provincial and local) should be established. 9. For Border Guard management purposes 5 regional directorates supplemented with a 6th directorate for covering Istanbul should be established. 10. regional Border Guard Directorates should be sub-divided into 2 or 3 Provincial Directorates. 11. The draft Border Guard law has to enable the General Director to establish local units other than the four types defined above. 12. A new Border Guard Academy with regional training centres (vocational schools) should be established at Directorate levels being responsible directly to the General Directorate of the Border Guard. 13. The organizational structure for the General Directorate, proposed by the short time experts, is to be adopted. 14. It is essential that the Coast Guard be included in the Border Guard structure, because of its key role in "blue border" surveillance. 15. The organization of the regional Directorates should mirror the General Directorate's struc-ture subject to their particular needs. 16. Each regional Directorate (except Istanbul) should be divided into Provincial Directorates. 17. Consideration should be given to setting up anti-terrorism units in the Eastern and South-east-ern regional Directorates. 18. A minimum ratio of 4 to 5 border guards per kilometre is to be used in establishing the surveillance staffing requirements at the land border.