Iran’s border with Turkey offers a way out, but few are leaving for good

Kapikoy Border Crossing, Turkey — The land crossing near eastern Turkey’s Van province is one of the few routes connecting Iranians to the rest of the world amid an airspace shutdown in Iran that has fueled the Middle East since the US and Israel launched strikes on Tehran a week ago.

Most travelers at the border gate these days have connections to Turkey through work, family and friends, and many have extended pre-planned visits because of the war. Some had residency or citizenship in a third country and were transiting through Turkey.

A small number of Iranians who spoke to The Associated Press at the Kapikoy crossing said they planned to stay in Turkey to escape the war for an unspecified period.

Reza Gol, a 38-year-old plastic surgeon, said the war was not the only reason for his trip. He was traveling from Urmia in western Iran to see patients in Istanbul, where he lived.

“It is not clear whether we will leave Iran for good, but in the meantime I can clear my head a little bit,” he said. “You can see that the border is not so crowded. Everyone is staying in their homes. People are not leaving everything they have and running away.”

Pune Asghari and her husband, an Iranian-Canadian citizen, were reluctantly preparing to fly to Canada, even though they no longer have a home there and both work in Iran. Asghari said he hopes the trip will be brief.

“We have been living in Iran for the past five years,” he said. “We have all our lives.”

Fariba, a woman who asked to be identified only by her first name out of security concerns, moved to Izmir in western Turkey to wait out the war with her son.

She said most of her friends and neighbors didn’t have an escape route — which may explain the lack of a major exit across the border.

“People are very poor now,” he said. “So they stay home and they’re scared.”

Iranians usually enter Turkey without a visa. On Monday, Turkey’s trade minister announced a reciprocal suspension of crossings for day-trippers, while Iranian border officials blocked the passage of some Iranian nationals, according to travelers and local media.

However, since Thursday morning, Iranians and third-country nationals have been crossing the mountain ring’s Kapikoi border gates normally.

Turkish Interior Minister Mustafa Cifti said in a statement that 2,032 passengers entered Turkey from Iran on Wednesday, while 1,966 of them went to Iran. Latest figures are not available.

Most of those who crossed over went to Van Airport to continue their journey. On Friday night, about 20 passengers, mostly Iranians, were sleeping on rows of chairs waiting to catch a flight the next morning.

Mehregan, 26, studying in China, was visiting her family in Ahvaz for the winter holidays when the war broke out. She drove more than 15 hours across Iran to cross into Turkey. She asked not to be identified by her full name for fear that speaking to the media would cause her problems with Iranian authorities.

The cash-strapped student decided to sleep at the airport the next day while waiting for her flight to Istanbul, from where she would fly to China. But on Saturday, her flight was canceled due to a snowstorm and she was preparing to find a hotel in the city rather than sleep at the airport for the second night.

“If I can’t get on the flight from here tomorrow I will miss my flight to China” and lose the cost of the non-refundable ticket, he said.

Van, a 1.5-hour drive from the border, has long been a popular destination for Iranians for work, travel and business. Hotels and shops that usually do bustling business during Iran’s Nowruz holiday in mid-March are now expecting to take a hit.

“It’s really lively in Nowruz. A lot of our friends come and spend their holidays here with us,” says Resat Yesilakas, owner of two hotels in Van. “It’s mostly quiet now, except for people coming because of the war. Most of them are dual nationals and stay in the van for a day or so before they fly out.”

Migration is a sensitive issue in Turkey, which at one point hosted nearly 4 million Syrian refugees.

Turkey is further beefing up its border defenses to respond to a potential influx of people fleeing the unrest after mass anti-government protests in Iran were met with a brutal crackdown in January.

The Turkish Defense Ministry said in January that Turkey has 380 kilometers (235 miles) of concrete walls, 203 optical towers and 43 elevator-equipped towers along the country’s 560-kilometer (350-mile) border with Iran.

Interior Minister Mustafa Cifti said on Wednesday that Turkey has drawn up contingency plans, including tent camps and buffer zones, to respond to a potential influx of people fleeing the war from Iran. So far that input has not materialized.

Harrison Mirtar, 53, an Iranian-Canadian, crossed the border at Kapikoy before returning to Canada after visiting his parents in Tehran. They are angry about foreign interference in their country, but they are not too worried about leaving their parents behind. He lived through the brutal Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

“They are in their homeland,” he said. “Life goes on, but with a few bombs.”