US says Turkey a main transit route for Syria-bound foreign fighters

A Syrian Kurdish sniper looks at the rubble in Kobani. (Photo: AP)

June 19, 2015, Friday/ 23:46:16/ MAHIR ZEYNALOV / WASHINGTON

The United States has said Turkey had served as a source and transit country throughout 2014 for foreign terrorist fighters wishing to join radical groups in Syria, in its annual report on terrorism, commending Turkey for intensified efforts to interdict the travel of the Syria-bound fighters.

The State Department said on Friday in its report that Turkey has voiced increasing concern about terrorist groups near its border, including Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), al-Nusrah Front, and other al-Qaeda-affiliated groups, largely because of the ongoing conflict in Syria.

By virtue of its location, the report said, the international transport hubs on its territory, and its long border with Syria and Iraq, Turkey remained the "main transit route" for foreign terrorist fighters.

State Department's findings correspondent with a statement by US President Barack Obama, who criticized Turkey last week for failing to crack down on foreign fighters crossing into Syria through Turkey. Obama said there are still thousands of foreign fighters joining the ranks of ISIL by using Turkey as a springboard. White House and the State Department also urged Ankara to do more in curbing Syria-bound foreign fighters.

In 2014, the report said, Turkey increased cooperation with source countries to develop an extensive banned-from-entry list of known or suspected terrorists and introduced tougher traveler screening procedures, making it more difficult for foreign terrorist fighters to cross its borders.
Turkish officials say it is difficult to intercept potential foreign fighters if they are not flagged by source countries and claims that it deported 1,200 militants and put more then 12,000 under "no-entry" list.

Turkey’s border security challenges, the State Department said in the report, continued to be aggravated by its failure to impose visa requirements for certain major foreign terrorist fighter source countries such as Libya.
"The ongoing civil war in Syria has been a spur to the worldwide terrorism events," the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, Tina Kaidanow, told a news conference to coincide with the launch of the report.

Since the report covers only calendar year 2014, Kaidanow said, it notes that the overall flow of foreign terrorist fighter travel to Syria was estimated at more than 16,000 foreign terrorist fighters from over 90 countries as of late December, which is a number that exceeds any similar flow of foreign terrorist fighters traveling to other countries in the last 20 years.
The State Department report said there were 13,463 terrorist attacks, a 35 percent jump from 2013, resulting in more than 32,700 deaths, an 81 percent rise. More than 9,400 people were kidnapped or taken hostage by militants, triple the rate of the previous year, it said.

The report also listed other significant internal threats Turkey continued to face in 2014. It said activity by the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), a terrorist Marxist-Leninist group with anti-US and anti-NATO views that seeks the violent overthrow of the Turkish state, threatened the security of both US and Turkish interests.

Because of their association with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Turkish government considers the Syria-based Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military wing (People’s Protection Units – YPG) to be terrorist organizations. As the YPG drove out the ISIL militants from key Syrian border town Tel-Abyad this week, Ankara became furious, with Erdoğan claiming that foreign governments helped "terrorists" in Tel-Abyad, referring to the Kurdish militants. On Friday, many Turkish pro-government newspapers published "horrific" accounts of Arab and Turkmen refugees fleeing the "poor treatment" of Kurds. The headline of Sabah daily, owned by Erdoğan's son-in-law, blared: "PYD is more dangerous than Daesh." Daehs is the Arabic version of the ISIL.

The State Department report also said the appearance of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal at a congress of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in December drew attention to the Turkish government’s relations with this group, which is designated as a terrorist group by the US.

The report complained that counterterrorism law enforcement efforts in Turkey remained focused on the domestic threat posed by several terrorist groups, including the PKK. Turkey’s methodology and legislation, it added, are geared towards confronting this internal threat.

"Efforts to counter international terrorism are hampered by legislation that defines terrorism narrowly as a crime targeting the Turkish state or Turkish citizens. This definition of terrorism can be an impediment to operational and legal cooperation against global terrorist networks. No significant counterterrorism-related legislation was enacted during the year," the report underscored.

The report said Turkey's counterterrorism legislation remains broad-reaching and is still being broadly applied despite improvements in 2013 that seemed to conform more closely to EU freedom of expression standards. In 2014, it said Turkish authorities continued to use it "to detain and prosecute thousands of politicians, reporters, and activists."

Keywords: Syria , Turkey , US State Department