Prague/Ankara, Nov 21 (CTK) – The Czech Foreign Ministry does not know any Czechs fighting alongside Islamic State (IS), spokeswoman Michaela Lagronova told journalists yesterday in reaction to the Turkish Daily Sabah’s information that some Czechs are fighting in one of the terrorist groups.
“We do not have many of them, we do not know about any person fighting for IS or any other terrorist organisation at present,” Lagronova said.
“Rather, it is a question for Czech authorities dealing with the struggle against terrorism,” she added in the interview with the Turkish paper.
It writes that she referred to the Czech interior and justice ministries to elaborate.
The Czech Foreign Ministry’s inability to provide information on its struggle against terrorism and Czech citizens fighting for some of the terrorist groups abroad is shocking and strongly disappointing, Daily Sabah writes yesterday.
Last week, it was the first media outlet to inform about a recent detention of two Czechs accused of having joined a terrorist organisation by Turkish authorities.
The paper, close to the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), criticised the Czech Foreign Ministry for being unable to answer the question of how the Czech government is fighting terrorism and how it is trying to prevent Czechs from taking part in international terrorist groups.
Last week, Turkish authorities detained two Czechs, Miroslav Farkas and Marketa Vselichova, when trying to cross the Turkish border with Syria.
The Turkish police reportedly found with Farkas and Vselichova documents proving their membership of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), Turkey considers a terrorist organisation.
The Kurdish YPG fight Islamic State.
At the weekend, Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag called on Turkey’s NATO allies to fight together terrorist groups such as IS, YPG and the movement of Turkish exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, about whom Ankara says he masterminded an attempted coup.
