A Turkmen opposition member Maksat Saparmuradov has reported in an interview to the website of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” that because of the pandemic of coronavirus COVID 19, many migrant workers in Turkey have lost their jobs.
When asked by “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” if there is any threat that the migrants who are now broke, will be recruited, the Turkey-based head of the Russian society of the Russian-Turkmen friendship “Fellow countrymen” and one of the leaders of the Coordination Council “The pathway to freedom” responded:
– About three years ago former colleagues from the Russian special services told me about the problem of Central Asia nationals, in particular Turkmenistan, being recruited by the terrorist organizations.
These efforts have recently been intensified. About a month ago there were reports in the media that emissaries of terrorist organizations had arrived to Turkey from Qatar to exchange $2 mln into cash for the purpose of recruiting new militants.
Taking advantage of the complicated economic situation, the migrants are being lured to to Syria with promises of well-paid jobs.Students from Turkmenistan who are doing a course of studies in Turkey told me that they had been offered $1000 upfront and the same amount once they had arrived at the destination.
Potential followers had been previously identified in mosques but in the meantime, since the latter have closed down, the recruiters are working through social networks in search of those who have been left without any income.
Many people are often misinformed that they are being offered non-military/regular jobs. They are promised leaning, cooking and household jobs. Needless to say, this is untrue.
It should be highlighted that the majority of Turkmens are not very religious and few of them are ready to fight for ideological reasons and for many the key motivation to move to Syria is an opportunity to solve their financial problems.
The full interview in Russian is available here.