Originally published 2021-07-03.
In July 2021 the US State Department placed Turkey on its Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA) list. The reason given was not that the Turkish army itself recruits children, but that Ankara gave "tangible support" to the Sultan Murad Division, a Syrian armed faction that Washington said had recruited and used child soldiers. It was the first time a member of NATO had appeared on the list.
The decision arrived in the annual Trafficking in Persons report, published at the start of July 2021. This article explains what the list is, why Turkey ended up on it, what the listing could and could not do in practice, and where the story sits within the wider debate over Turkey's role in Syria and Libya.
What the Child Soldiers Prevention Act list is
The Child Soldiers Prevention Act became US law in December 2008, folded into the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Its core idea is simple: Washington should not hand military aid or approve arms deals for governments that put children into combat, or that back armed groups doing so.
Each year the State Department's Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report names the governments that fall under the law. Being named triggers limits on several kinds of security help, such as foreign military financing, military training programmes and licences for commercial sales of military equipment.
There is an important escape hatch. The president can issue a full or partial waiver if he decides that continuing assistance serves the US national interest. Presidents of both parties have used that power almost every year since the first waivers were signed in October 2010. So a listing is a strong public signal, yet it does not automatically end military cooperation.
Why Turkey was added in 2021
According to the 2021 report, as described by CNN, Turkey supplied support to the Sultan Murad Division, a faction of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. The report said the group recruited and used children, both inside Syria and among the Syrian fighters sent to Libya, where Turkey was backing the Tripoli-based government.
A senior State Department official summed up why the step stood out, telling reporters that "this is the first time a NATO member has been listed in the child soldier prevention act list." The same official described Turkey as a respected regional leader that had the chance to tackle the recruitment and use of children in Syria and Libya.
Turkey was one of two new additions that year; Pakistan was also added in July 2021. The other names on the list were mostly countries affected by long civil wars or insurgencies, which is part of why Turkey's inclusion drew so much attention.
Who the Sultan Murad Division are
The Sultan Murad Division began in 2013 as a Syrian Turkmen rebel brigade around Aleppo. Over the following years it became one of the factions most closely tied to Ankara, receiving Turkish funding, training, artillery support and air cover. It fought in Turkey's cross-border operations in northern Syria and later joined the Syrian National Army.
The group has faced serious accusations beyond child recruitment:
- Aleppo, 2016: Amnesty International reported that shelling of the Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsoud district by a coalition that included the group killed at least 83 civilians, among them 30 children, and said the attacks could amount to war crimes.
- Afrin and Ras al-Ayn: a UN commission of inquiry found that the group had repeatedly committed the war crime of pillage in these areas after Turkish-led offensives.
- Libya: fighters from the faction were reported among the Syrians sent to Libya in 2019 and 2020; the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that minors were among them.
Earlier versions of this story repeated claims of mass killings and mass rape attributed to the group by its opponents. Those specific charges are hard to verify independently, so they are best treated as allegations; the UN and Amnesty findings above are the documented record.
What the listing meant in practice
On the day the report was released, State Department spokesman Ned Price said waivers remained possible and that decisions would come in the following months. He also asked that the report not be linked to talks with Turkey over Afghanistan, where Ankara had offered to help secure Kabul airport after the NATO withdrawal.
That context matters. The US, Turkey's NATO ally, had many overlapping interests with Ankara in 2021, from Afghanistan to the Black Sea. Speculation at the time about sweeping international sanctions was therefore overstated. The CSPA restricts specific categories of US security assistance; it is not a sanctions regime, and the European Union or United Nations do not follow it automatically.
Turkey did not immediately respond to the listing, according to CNN. Ankara has generally rejected accusations that the Syrian factions it backs commit abuses, describing them as legitimate opposition forces fighting both the Syrian government and groups it considers terrorist.
The wider background: Turkey, Syria and the Kurds
Turkey's involvement in Syria grew through a series of military operations from 2016 onward. In 2018 Turkish forces and allied Syrian factions took the Kurdish-majority Afrin region, and in October 2019 they launched an offensive east of the Euphrates against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF had been Washington's main ground partner in the campaign that defeated the so-called Islamic State's territorial "caliphate" in 2019.
Ankara views the main Kurdish militia in the SDF, the YPG, as an extension of the PKK, which Turkey, the US and the EU list as a terrorist organisation. Critics, including Kurdish groups and many human rights organisations, argue that the operations displaced large numbers of civilians and handed control of mixed communities to factions accused of looting and abuse.
The child-soldier listing added a formal US finding to that debate: support for at least one of those factions now carried a documented cost on paper, whatever the political follow-through.
Reactions in Greece and Cyprus
Greece and Cyprus have long pressed their EU partners to take a firmer line with Turkey, citing incursions into Greek airspace and waters, drilling disputes in the eastern Mediterranean and Turkey's continued occupation of northern Cyprus since 1974. Opposition politicians and press-freedom groups inside Turkey have likewise criticised President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government for jailing journalists and opponents.
In the same summer, Athens and Nicosia objected to Germany continuing its part in Turkey's submarine programme. A widely repeated claim said Turkey had "received six submarines" from Germany; that is not accurate. The deal, signed in 2009 with the German shipbuilder HDW and partners, covers six Type 214-based Reis-class submarines built at Turkey's Gölcük naval shipyard using German-supplied packages. In 2021 the boats were still under construction, and the first, TCG Pirireis, was only commissioned in August 2024.
Why this matters for children in conflict
Under international law, recruiting children under 15 into armed forces or groups is a war crime, and the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child sets 18 as the minimum age for direct participation in hostilities. Children pulled into armed groups often lose years of education and carry long-term trauma.
The CSPA works through money and weapons: it asks whether US assistance ends up helping forces that use children. Listing a NATO ally showed that the test could, at least on paper, apply to close partners and not only to fragile states. Whether that pressure changes behaviour on the ground depends on follow-up by Washington and on independent monitoring by the UN and humanitarian groups.
For readers following the story, the most useful sources are the annual TIP report itself, the reports of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, and the UN Secretary-General's yearly report on children and armed conflict, which lists verified recruitment cases by party.
Sources: CNN, 2 July 2021; Wikipedia: Sultan Murad Division; Wikipedia: Child Soldiers Prevention Act; Wikipedia: Reis-class submarine; US State Department, 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report.
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