Turkey calls for more cooperation on foreign fighters issue

Baku. 14 March. REPORT.AZ/ Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu highlighted on Friday the intelligence sharing issue with regards to foreign fighters trying to join Daesh, saying Turkey can cope with the foreign fighters issue only with other countries' cooperation.

During a joint press conference with his Macedonian counterpart Nikola Poposki in Ankara, Cavusoglu said " Turkey is a transit country for foreign fighters to go to Syria and Iraq and it is normal to expect precautions fromTurkey."

Report informs referring the information given by the Anadolu Agency, the foreign minister described the foreign fighters issue as "complicated" and said people who are coming from EU countries to join Daesh "cannot be stopped leaving their country."

Answering a question about claims in the Turkish media that a man allegedly working for Canadian intelligence helped the three teenage British schoolgirls cross from Turkey into Syria to join Daesh, Cavusoglu answered that the man is "a citizen of Syria," and "he works for a country in the U.S.-led coalition against Daesh."

On Thursday, in a televised interview, Cavusoglu said, "Do you know who was the person who helped these girls? This person was caught. It turned out to be someone who worked in the intelligence services of a country in the coalition."

The foreign minister also mentioned that the international media always criticizes Turkey over three British girls, but "Turkey is doing the best it can."

"Turkey has issued exclusion bans against 12,519 suspected people so far and deported 1,154 of them," Cavusoglu said.

British girls Shamima Begum, 15, Amira Abase, 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, went missing from East London in early February and reportedly arrived in Turkey to cross into Syria.