Turkey wants peace and stability in Syria

Turkey has taken extraordinary measures to counter the infiltration of Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) into Syria and included 35,970 foreigners so far in the no-entry list since the Syrian crisis erupted, informed Turkish Ambassador Hatun Demirer.

Speaking to DT News at her office here yesterday, Ms. Demirer said that Turkey had deported more than 2,800 foreigners since 2011 but the foreign countries needed to keep check on their nationals as well. She said that the foreign fighters were from 100 different nations, so the source countries should take necessary legal and administrative measures to prevent departure and travel of FTFs from their countries.

“We have sent the suspects back and they come again. How?” she queried. “Why those countries are not following their terrorists?”

According to Ms. Demirer, Turkey wants peace and stability especially in Syria as soon as possible. 

“We can feel their pain as we are hosting more than 2.5 million Syrians in our country. More than five million Syrians are scattered around the neighbouring countries,” she explained.

She said that Turkey had deployed 20,000 security staff on the border and the number of third country citizens intercepted while illegal border crossing on the Syrian border between June 15, 2015 and December 29, 2015 is 1,945. 

“As part Turkey’s efforts to prevent FTFs from reaching the conflict areas via Turkey, new risk analysis units have been deployed at the airports and major bus terminals. Until now, around 7,500 people were checked by these units and more than 1700 of them were denied entry to Turkey,” she pointed out.

Ms. Demirer said that ISIS was not their only concern, they were also confronted by the PKK and the PYD, the former’s offshoot in Syria, both terrorist organisations. 

Speaking about the plight of Syrian Arab families whose houses were razed by the YPG forces (armed wing of PYD), she said that she was surprised to see why the Arab countries were not following this issue.