KAPIKOY BORDER CROSSING, Turkiye: A land crossing near eastern Turkiye’s Van province is one of the few routes connecting Iranians to the rest of the world amid an airspace shutdown in Iran since the US and Israel launched strikes on Tehran over a week ago, triggering war in the Middle East.
Most travelers at the border gate in recent days had connections with Turkiye through work, family, and friends, and many had moved up preplanned visits because of the war. Some had residency or citizenship in a third country and were transiting through Turkiye.
Only a small number of Iranians interviewed at the Kapikoy crossing said they planned to stay in Turkiye to escape the war for an indefinite 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 used to live.
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Only a small number of Iranians interviewed at the Kapikoy crossing said they planned to stay in Turkiye to escape the war.
“It’s not clear whether we will leave Iran for good, but I can clear my head a little bit in the meantime,” he said. “
Pooneh Asghari and her husband, Iranian-Canadian citizens, were reluctantly preparing to fly to Canada, although they no longer have a house there and both of them work in Iran. Asghari said they are hoping the trip will be brief.
“We’ve been living in Iran for over the last five years,” she said. “All our life is there.”
Fariba, a woman who asked to be identified only by her first name out of security concerns, was headed to İzmir in western Turkiye to wait out the war with her son.
She said most of her friends and neighbors don’t have the means to escape — which might explain the lack of a major exodus across the border.
“People are very poor now,” she said. “So they are staying at home, and they are scared.”
Iranians normally enter Turkiye without visas. On Monday, Turkiye’s trade minister announced the mutual suspension of crossings for day-trips, while Iranian border officials have restricted the passage of some Iranian nationals, according to travelers and local media.
However, since Thursday morning, both Iranians and third-country nationals have been crossing the mountain ringed Kapıköy border gates normally.
Turkiye’s Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi said in a statement that 2,032 travelers entered Turkiye from Iran on Wednesday, while 1,966 of them departed to Iran.
Most of those who crossed then made their way to the Van airport to continue their journey. On Friday night, about 20 passengers, mostly Iranians, were lying on rows of chairs waiting to get a flight the next morning.
Van, which is a 1.5-hour drive from the border, has long been a popular destination for Iranians for work, travel, and trade. The hotels and shops that normally do bustling business during Iran’s Nowruz holidays in mid-March are now expecting to take a hit.
“It gets really lively here over Nowruz. A lot of our friends come and spend their holidays here with us,” says Resat Yeşilağaç, owner of two hotels in Van. “Now it’s mostly quiet, apart from people who come because of the war. Most of them are dual nationals and they stop in Van for a day or so before flying out.”
