Page 13 - TURKRptAug21

2.4 Afghanistan new Syria/Libya, Central Asia new Middle East/North Africa, Fingers pointing at China
Turkey will take over the Afghanistan mission from the US.
The Kabul airport is currently operated by Turkey but there is also the question of providing security over an extensive surrounding area with a perimeter several kilometres away. That has so far been the responsibility of local forces backed by US-led Nato forces. Assaults on the airport are all but inevitable.
There are currently around 500 Turkish troops deployed to Afghanistan under a Nato mission to protect Hamid Karzai International Airport.
Taliban forces are advancing in regions evacuated by the US-led Nato forces. Erdogan and the Taliban are holding negotiations over the media.
With Afghanistan set to bring Central Asia into focus as a new region of chaos in relation to the US exit—something which will bring China into the spotlight—the players in the decade-old Syrian Civil War, including Turkey, are promoting a (questionable) status quo.
While the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is adding thousands to migrant numbers arriving in Turkey, Turkey officially hosts more than 4mn migrants, including 3.6mn Syrians. However, a figure of 10mn is not too unrealistic in estimating the real number of migrants in Turkey, which has an official population of 83mn.
The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, put the number of Afghan asylum seekers Turkey hosts at 125,104 in a 2020 report. But there are research estimates that the true number of irregular immigrants of Afghan origin in the country might be more than 500,000.
13 TURKEY Country Report August 2021 www.intellinews.com