WorldANKARA, AFP -Turkey said on Monday Islamic State (IS) jihadists must be totally pushed out of the Syrian border region, after a weekend suicide bombing in the city of Gaziantep blamed on the group left at least 54 dead. “Our border must be completely cleansed from Daesh,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in televised remarks, using an Arabic acronym for the IS group. Quoting security sources, some Turkish media reported earlier the Gaziantep attack could have been retaliation by IS for an operation carried out by Ankara-backed opposition rebels against the jihadists in Jarablus in northern Syria. Cavusoglu said Turkey was a “prime target of Daesh” because the government had dried up the group's resources of foreign terrorist fighters, placing an entry ban on 55,000 members and deporting around 4,000 suspects. The foreign minister said Turkey and Erdogan played a key role in defeating the ideology of IS, adding: “Therefore, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is their number-one target.” Turkey was long accused of turning a blind eye to or even abetting the rise of IS in Syria, claims it vehemently denies.

Source: Sunday Times August 22, 2016 10:07 UTC