‘Relax, they are our friends’: One quote shows why Turkey’s ISIS problem is only going to get worse

In a recent interview with The Guardian, a former ISIS fighter described how easy it was for him to cross Turkey's notoriously porous border into Syria to join the Islamic State.

Abu Ali, who said he entered ISIS territory in mid-January 2015 from the Akçakale border crossing in Turkey, told the publication's Robert Worth that for 75 Turkish lira, he was pointed in the direction of a hole in a fence separating Turkey from Syria.

He squeezed through and began to run, Ali recalled, until a group of ISIS militants stationed on the Syrian side of the border asked him why he was running. Ali gestured back toward the Turkish border guards.

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“If the individuals were identified as PKK, for example, they could be detained and convicted for being part of a legally defined terrorist organization,” Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider last year.

He was referring to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Turkey designates as a terrorist organization.

“But because these individuals are [Islamic State], they cannot be convicted unless lawyers can prove that they committed terrorism inside Turkey,” Schanzer continued.

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