Turkey’s ambiguous policies help terrorists join IS jihadist group: analyst

By Qiu Yongzheng 


A Chinese security analyst has claimed that the Turkish government's ambiguous policies have allowed terrorists easy access to Turkey, enabling them to join the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group.

According to a senior security official from the Kurdish region of Iraq, terrorists from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a terrorist organization that is also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), have travelled to Syria via southeastern Turkey's Sanliurfa Province to join the Islamic State jihadist group. 

The official shared a video produced by the Islamic State which dates from October 17 this year with the Global Times, which features a teenage boy sitting in the driver's seat of a vehicle. 

The video subtitles claim the teenager shown in the video was "a Chinese brother before he did a martyrdom operation (suicide bomb attack) in the town of Suleiman." 

"The fact that these extremists can easily enter Turkey and later travel to Syria and Iraq to join IS is a direct consequence of the Turkish government's ambiguous policies," a source familiar with China's anti-terrorism operations, told the Global Times. 

The Turkish Embassy in Beijing has denied they have issued passports to Xinjiang residents, calling these claims of the illegal issuance of passports "ridiculous" and saying that they "only issue passports to Turkish citizens."

"The illegal issuance of passports and visas and customs loopholes in some Southeast Asian countries have allowed extremists to travel to Turkey and then go on to join the jihadists," the source told the Global Times. 

"If there weren't so many illegal passports and visas available, there would not be so many members of ETIM in Syria and Iraq," the source noted. 

According to information from various sources, including security officers from Iraq's Kurdish region, Syria and Lebanon, around 300 Chinese extremists are fighting with IS in Iraq and Syria.

The sources told the Global Times that the extremist militants of ETIM, or TIP, which were previously believed to have been independently fighting with other opposition forces in Syria, have added "IS" to the name of their organizations, a signal that they have officially pledged allegiance to the jihadist group and formed a new sub-division under IS.