By Ainur Rohmah
JAKARTA
Sixteen members of an Indonesian tour party that went missing in Turkey last month are still in the country, Indonesian media reported on Sunday.
According to the Jakarta Post, National Police spokesman Sr. Cdr. Agus Rianto said the group had not entered Syria.
Earlier this week, Turkish police reported that a separate group of 16 Indonesians had been arrested trying to cross Turkey’s southern border into war-ravaged Syria. They are suspected of trying to join militant group Daesh.
Rianto said on Saturday that Interpol had confirmed the missing Indonesians were still in Turkey. “We are still waiting for information about their exact location from Interpol,” he told the Post.
The missing 16 Indonesians – members of three families including six children – separated from their tour group as they passed through immigration at Ataturk airport in Istanbul on Feb. 24. They had been due to return home on March 5.
The Post reported that some members of the group had claimed that they intended to arrange family affairs.
Rianto added: “We are working together with the country’s [Turkey’s] police force to monitor the borders to try to prevent them from entering Syria.”
Indonesia’s National Counter-Terrorism Agency has said that the recruitment of jihadist fighters from Indonesia rose significantly between June and October last year, estimating that 514 Indonesians had gone to Syria and Iraq.
Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said recently that 600 Indonesians had joined Daesh.
Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population and the lack of measures to prevent potential fighters travelling to the Middle East makes it a fertile ground for recruitment, the Post reported.
There are currently no laws prohibiting Indonesians from travelling abroad to join militant groups.
Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir said the government still had no information about the fate of the group detained in Gaziantep, southern Turkey.
Asked if Turkey would deport them, he said: “We don’t know yet. We are discussing the situation with the Turkish government.”
On Sunday, Vice President Jusuf Kalla told Indonesian news agency Antara that Indonesia and Turkey were coordinating their efforts to combat radicalization.
"The meeting with [the] Turkish delegation has talked about how we can jointly work to deal with radicalization," he said at a disaster conference in Sendai, Japan.
Kalla said the discussions with Turkey included issues such as security cooperation, information exchange and coordinating responses to the refugee crisis caused by fighting in Syria and Iraq.
"Radicalism must be overcome together," he said, pointing to the threat posed by militants returning to their home countries.
Kalla said there would be a further meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
