ANKARA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Türkiye has seized nearly half a ton of narcotics and more than 780,000 narcotic pills in large-scale operations carried out across 73 provinces over the past two weeks, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Friday.
The security forces seized 479 kg of narcotics and 783,080 pills and detained 1,695 suspects during the operations, Yerlikaya said on the social media platform X.
He said the operations involved 2,548 teams, 6,350 personnel, 18 aerial vehicles, and 37 narcotic detection dogs.
Meanwhile, Turkish customs officers on Friday seized nearly 246 kg of cannabis in two separate busts at the Kapikule border crossing with Bulgaria in Edirne province and detained two suspects, authorities said.
Türkiye, located at the crossroads of Asia and Europe, remains a key transit route in international drug trafficking. Turkish security forces regularly conduct operations to combat those crimes. ■
