A total of 250 Afghan female police cadets finished their four-month training program on Thursday in Sivas, a province in the eastern part of the Central Anatolia region.
The Afghan police hopefuls joined Sivas Police Vocational School on Sept. 2 for training, covering everything from courses on laws to how to handle and fire weapons, directing traffic, crime scene investigation, driving, search, defense and terrorism.
Afghan cadets have been receiving training in Turkey as part of a cooperation agreement signed in 2011 between the two countries. Turkey has already trained almost 3,000 Afghan cadets since 2011 and more than 1,000 of the graduates are women.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony, Afghan deputy interior minister, Taj Mohammad Jahed praised Turkey's support for Afghanistan's development efforts. "Especially in the last 15 years, Turkey has assumed an important role to help Afghanistan stand on its feet."
Although they are nearly 3,000 kilometers apart, Afghanistan and Turkey enjoy close ties dating back to the early years of the Republic of Turkey. Turkey was the first country to open a diplomatic mission in Kabul in 1921 and both Muslim-majority countries maintain deep cultural ties dating back to the Turkic rule of Afghanistan up to the 12th century.
The employment of female police officers is relatively novel in Afghanistan where women were shunned from such tasks during the Taliban rule. The number of female police officers still remains low compared to their male colleagues, but Afghanistan seeks to enroll more female police officers in the face of the ongoing Taliban threat and crimes against women.
Apart from Afghanistan, the Turkish National Police offers training for law enforcement officials from more than 50 countries, mostly developing or underdeveloped ones, and has trained more than 20,000 cadets and officers since 1997.
