Turkish soldiers leave in a vehicle transporting British nationals arrested on the Syrian border as they sought to illegally cross over from Turkey, in Hatay.
AFP/Ankara
Turkey will at the weekend deport nine British citizens detained on the Syrian border after they tried to cross into areas controlled by Islamic State (IS) jihadists, reports said on Friday.
The Turkish authorities have completed their investigation into the nine, whose case has attracted huge attention in Britain after it emerged that they included four children and the son of a British local politician, the Anatolia news agency reported.
They are scheduled to be deported on Saturday back to Britain and will be banned from entering Turkey, it said.
The report confirmed that one of the nine is Waheed Ahmed, 22, who is the son of Shakil Ahmed, a councillor for the opposition Labour party on Rochdale Borough Council.
As well as the four children, the others are Maboob Yasin, 23, Habib Yasin, 25, Zareeda Bi, 48, and Samia Bi, 23, it added.
Turkey has in the last months been repeatedly criticised by its Western allies for not doing enough to halt the flow across Turkish territory of European nationals seeking to join IS jihadists in Syria.
However it has made a number of arrests in recent months in an apparent bid to deflect the criticism and insists it is doing all it can to control the border.
The Turkish army announced on Wednesday that the nine British citizens had been arrested by a border patrol in the Hatay region of southern Turkey.
