September 16, 2014

Turkey became a recruitment hub for ISIS

located:	Turkey
editor:	Murat Suner

With Turkey's refusal to join US efforts to form a core coalition of 10 countries fighting ISIS the Wall Street Journal declared Turkey as a "non-ally" to the US. Last Thursday Turkish government further declined to sign a communiqué that committed a number of regional states to take “appropriate” measures to counter ISIS.

Turkey's open border policy since the early phase of the Syrian civil war provided a silent support to the rise of ISIS. While a large number of foreign fighters, including some from Europe and the United States, have joined ISIS, "one of the biggest source of recruits is neighboring Turkey, a NATO member with an undercurrent of Islamist discontent." reports the New York Times.

The newspaper further quotes Aaron Stein, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank: “There are clearly recruitment centers being set up in Ankara and elsewhere in Turkey, but the government doesn’t seem to care."

According to NYT author Ceylan Yenginsu, districts like Haci Bayram in Ankara, providing up to 100 fighters, have become ISIS recruitment hubs over the past year. Just there, in Haci Bayram Veli Mosque, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, prayed together in August.