LONDON: The United Kingdom has said that it has signed a security deal with Iraq to target people-smuggling gangs and strengthen border cooperation, the latest in its efforts to curb irregular migration.
“There are smuggler gangs profiting from dangerous small boat crossings whose operations stretch back through northern France, Germany, across Europe, to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and beyond,” British Interior Minister Yvette Cooper said in a statement on Thursday.
Yvette Cooper said the agreement sent a clear signal to the criminal smuggling gangs that they are determined to work across the globe to go after them, according to AFP.
They follow a trip this week by Cooper to Iraq, when she met federal and regional government officials.
“Organised criminals operate across borders, so law enforcement needs to operate across borders too,” she said in a statement.
AFP cited Cooper as saying that the increasingly global nature of organised immigration crime means that even countries that are thousands of miles apart must work more closely together.
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The pacts include a joint UK-Iraq “statement on border security” committing both countries to work more closely in tackling people smuggling and border security.
The two sides signed another statement on migration to speed up the returns of people who have no right to be in the UK and help reintegration programmes to support returnees.
As part of the agreements, London will provide up to £300,000 ($380,000) for Iraqi law enforcement training in border security.
It will be focused on countering organised immigration crime and narcotics, and increasing the capacity and capability of Iraq’s border enforcement.
Other measures within the agreements include a communications campaign “to counter the misinformation and myths that people-smugglers post online”.
Cooper’s interior ministry said collectively they were “the biggest operational package to tackle serious organised crime and people smuggling between the two countries ever”.
