EU Allowed Deported Foreign Terrorists to Return to Turkey

Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu said that the terrorist attacks in Brussels last week could have been prevented by having better cooperation from Europe and a "zero-tolerance policy" against terrorism.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — EU member states allowed suspected terrorists to fly back to Turkey after they were deported, Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a speech at George Washington University in Washington, DC on Tuesday.

"Some of these foreign terrorist fighters we deported to source countries [in Europe] eventually came back to our airports," Cavusoglu stated.

Turkey has deported more than 3,250 suspected terrorist fighters to their home countries in Europe and has more than 38,000 names on the list of people barred from entering Turkey, the foreign minister explained.

Cavusoglu also noted that the terrorist attacks in Brussels last week could have been prevented by having better cooperation from Europe and a "zero-tolerance policy" against terrorism.

One of the suspected Brussels attackers, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, was captured in Gaziantep, Turkey last year and deported to the Netherlands.

Turkey had warned both, Belgium and the Netherlands — and specifically the Brussels police — that Bakraoui was a terrorist.

"Unfortunately, the Belgian authorities did not take any measure and they released him," Cavusoglu pointed out.

Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and his brother Khalid were identified as two of the attackers responsible for last week’s bombings in Brussels that killed 35 people.