By Satuk Bugra Kutlugun
ANKARA
Britain's Ambassador to Turkey has warned students at an Ankara university about the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, saying the U.K. worries about the organization "a lot".
Speaking as part of a conference series called "Diplomacy O’clock", ambassador Richard Moore warned students at the private Atilim University on Wednesday about young people's attraction to radical groups like ISIL, saying about 500 young Britons had travelled to Syria and most had ended up fighting there.
"We worry a lot. If they would come back totally radicalized and trained with terrorist techniques then a July 2005 incident will happen again," he said.
A total of 52 people were killed in the 7 July 2005 attacks in London, when a series of bombs went off on the capital's public transport system.
“We have a real problem in our communities about how to address the attraction of ISIL in managing to recruit young people. We share this problem with Turkey as well,” Moore said.
The British envoy also said there is a fact to confront that young people were "attracted" when they saw videos of "people having their head taken off".
“That means we have to work closely with Turkish authorities about people travelling to Turkey trying to get to Syria," he said.
Thousands massacred
About 900 French citizens, 500 British and 400 Germans are reported to have participated in the fight in Syria against the Assad regime, which has massacred thousands of people.
In Iraq, European fighters have also fought alongside ISIL-led militants who have been responsible for killing thousands of people.
When asked about the limited help from other countries to Turkey on sheltering Syrian refugees who flee from ISIL terror, Moore said Turkey has done a "magnificent job" so far and needed more support.
"Turkey did what was right; to refuge these victims of the civil war and I have full admiration about what they have done so far," he said.
"The United Kingdom is helping the refugees as well, the ones outside the region. Lebanon and Jordan paid even a bigger price than Turkey because they are smaller and less successful in terms of economy," he added.
"Outside the region, Britain is the second-biggest contributor after the U.S. There are a lot of countries who are not contributing, as they should be," he said.
An estimated 1.6 million Syrian refugees, including 190,000 from Syria's border town of Kobani, have sought shelter in camps across Turkey after fleeing from ISIL terror in the country.
Turkey, the 17th biggest economy in the world, has spent about $4.5 billion on aiding refugees while international help has totaled about $220 million.
Asked whether the U.K. was involved in training and equipping fighters in Syria to battle ISIL militants, Moore answered: “Yes, as a part of the anti-ISIL coalition and we are keen to work with both Iraqi parts, the government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government."
Turkey's EU membership bid
The envoy also talked about the long-time membership journey of Turkey towards EU membership, saying the reason why it had not got access was "definitely not" because Turkey is a large Muslim-populated country.
“The U.K. has always supported Turkey’s membership to the EU,” he said. “Undoubtedly, there are people in the EU who look at Turkey and say they don’t want a large Muslim country there, but they are not the majority.”
Moore believed that, from 2004 and onwards, Turkey has had a tough time with the EU and the EU has treated Turkey unfairly.
He added all member countries which applied later than Turkey has also had to meet a series of criteria to enter the organization.
“No standard was dropped for those countries and nothing was raised especially for Turkey. Frankly, for a country as big as Turkey, these criteria caused more difficulty for Turkey than the others," he said.
Turkey 'supported'
Moore said he believed that, sooner or later, Muslim countries would join the EU and he would like to see Turkey do so.
“I believe Bosnia and Albania will join the EU as well,” he added. “There are already large Muslim minorities within the EU, in the U.K. for example.”
Moore explained that after Turkey does what it needs to do to join the EU, then the naysayers would be “fully exposed in the eyes of the world for not considering Turkey in the organization because of its Muslim population".
The ambassador also said he fully supported Turkey’s EU membership and that Turkey’s inclusion would make Europe a better place and vice versa.
The EU and Turkey established the Customs Union in 1995, as it was seen as a keystone to a prospective EU membership.
However, Turkey’s EU accession negotiations entered into a stalemate in 2007 due to the Cyprus problem and the opposition of the German and French governments to its full membership.
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