Turkey vows to stop foreign fighters to Syria

Turkey vows to stop foreign fighters to Syria

The government is taking additional steps to try to stop the flow of foreign fighters through Turkey into Syria.

At a dinner meeting with the ambassadors of European Union countries in Ankara last month, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey has been taking all necessary measures against third country nationals who are planning to join radical groups in Syria.

"Turkey has banned 5,300 people from entering Turkish territories," Erdogan said.

In parallel with the escalating civil war in Syria, easy visa policies for EU citizens to travel to Turkey are considered as a facilitating factor in making Turkey a transit point for foreign fighters, especially for those coming from EU countries.

For foreign fighters coming from the Balkans, the picture is much simpler considering that Turkey has already lifted visa requirements for Balkan citizens. Hundreds of people from the Balkans have joined the fighting in Syria, despite pleas from their governments and many religious leaders not to fight.

Foreign fighters go to Syria to fight for radical Islamic groups like al-Nusra or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The militants return to their countries of origin often via Turkey, posing security threats to Turkey and Europe.

In a recent report published by Ankara-based think-tank USAK, ISIL is considered as the main attractor of foreign fighters in the Middle East.

"Having carried the global terrorism bar to another level, ISIL has added many foreign fighters to its ranks, especially from Arab lands. The Syrian war has exceeded the Afghanistan war in terms of numbers of foreign fighters, scope of their origins, fighting capabilities...