Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu on Wednesday said Turkey had captured nearly 9,500 EU citizens who were about to cross the border with Syria to join People’s Protection Units (YPG) militants or Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorists.
France and Belgium lead the numbers among these EU countries, he added, according to the state-owned Anadolu news agency.
Speaking at a workshop on counterterrorism in Ankara, Soylu claimed that Turkey had prevented some 347 terrorist acts in 2018.
“Last year, we prevented 697 terrorist acts, and now 347 this year. There is a tremendous effort and serious success that can’t be ignored,” he said.
Soylu further asserted that Turkey had so far imposed permanent entry bans on 69,967 people from 151 countries.
Turkey also deported a total of 7,031 foreign terrorists of 100 nationalities, Soylu added.