The Republic of Turkey celebrated its 100th anniversary in October 2023. This century-long period also reveals the century-long memory of Türkiye’s territorial borders. Despite many problems such as diplomatic problems, terrorism, water, and territorial disputes over the past decades, Türkiye’s borders have remained stable. However, the first quarter of the 21st century has proven that borders, like many other things, can transform.
Turkey has been hosting 4 million Syrians since 2010. In addition, hundreds of thousands of irregular migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and African countries use Türkiye as a target and transit country. Like most states around the world, Turkey has sought a solution to this problem (!) at its borders and has built a total of 1,160 km of integrated physical border security system on its borders in the last 15 years. The system includes the highest level of technological elements such as lighting, motion and heat sensors, electro-optic towers, thermal cameras, drones, and unmanned aerial vehicles. This technological layer created against migrants at the border is, in a sense, re-bordering territorial borders with a century-old memory. Within the scope of the study, technologically-centered border walls on Türkiye’s borders with Syria, Iran, and Iraq will be discussed and analyzed, including field observations, which will be included in the presentation.