ANKARA, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Turkish and Italian police will work together to stop gangs
smuggling people from Turkey to Italy, a springboard for illegal immigration to the rest of
Europe, Italian Interior Minister Enzo Bianco said on Tuesday.

Bianco was in the Turkish capital to discuss closer cooperation in the fight against human
smuggling, organised crime and drug trafficking, putting flesh on the bones of a 1998
agreement between the two countries.

"This cooperation will pave the way for forming joint investigation teams to halt illegal
immigration," Bianco told Reuters in an interview after talks with his Turkish counterpart
Saadettin Tantan.

Hundreds of illegal migrants have landed on the shores of Italy in flimsy boats that sailed
from Turkey. Most are Kurds from southeast Turkey and northern Iraq, others are from
impoverished regions further east.

The European Union has put pressure on both Turkey and EU member Italy to stop the flood
of illegal immigrants who, it fears, will spread across Europe if they find a toehold in
southern Italy.

Bianco carefully avoided linking Turkey's problems with the smuggling of humans to its EU
candidacy or to the reforms Ankara must make before becoming an EU member.

Turkey gives refugee status only to those arriving from countries further west, such as
Bulgaria. The EU wants Ankara to extend this to people arriving from the east in the hope
that the migratory flow would halt in Turkey before reaching Europe.

Bianco said he had not discussed the EU's expectations with his Turkish counterpart, and
added that his country supports Turkey's EU candidacy as a fellow-Mediterranean country.
"As the first result of our cooperation, we have managed to find some gangs trafficking in
illegal migrants," Bianco said.

Turkey's national police chief will visit Rome in February for talks with his Italian
counterpart to "energise the project," Bianco said. The joint teams will clamp down on both
Turkish and Italian groups engaged in human smuggling, he added.

The two countries have exchanged senior police officials to improve the two-way flow of
information, and Bianco said that "we want this cooperation to go further."

Turkish security forces detain and deport hundreds of illegal migrants each week after fining
them sums which are little deterrent because of Turkey's chronic inflation.

Relations between NATO allies Turkey and Italy came under strain after Italy allowed
Turkey's rebel Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, then on the run, to enter the country in
1998.

Ties returned to normal when Italy sent aid after an earthquake killed thousands of people in
western Turkey in 1999.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com