The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said Tuesday that it had facilitated the return of a young Jewish Israeli citizen who had planned to cross the border from Turkey into Syria. A source in the Foreign Ministry said that affair was not being treated as a security incident, but rather as a personal issue involving the young man.
Deputy Foreign Ministry spokesman Alon Lavi said that the ministry had received a request last Thursday from an Israeli family, seeking help in bringing back to Israel a relative they said had flown to Crete en route to Syria. They were apparently concerned that he was planning to join the Islamic State (also known as ISIS).
The young man is 21-year-old, but is still under legal guardianship of his family. The Foreign Ministry would not provide additional details about the young man, for reasons of privacy and the sensitive nature of the case.
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The Turkish authorities agreed to help, and the Iskender police were able to find the young man and hand him over to his family, who had flown to Turkey to retrieve him. The man and his family returned to Israel on Monday.
The Foreign Ministry’s Director for Israelis Abroad, Ilana Ravid, called the case complex and worrisome, but added, “thanks to the diplomatic activity of the Israeli representatives in Turkey and the good will of the Turkish authorities, the story had a happy ending.”
