Turkey has arrested 865 people since the start of 2016 in its fight against DAESH, and more than half of those were foreigners, Interior Minister Efkan Ala said in his remarks following a meeting with Ramil Usubov, Azerbaijan's Interior Minister on Wednesday.

Thousands of foreign fighters from various countries, including Turkey, Britain, Europe and the United States, have joined the DAESH militants in their self-proclaimed caliphate in recent years, many of them passing through Turkey. Ankara has since launched a crackdown on the networks facilitating their passage.

Since launching the crackdown, Turkey has detained a total of 5,803 people, of which about 2,200 were foreigners, the minister said. Ala also stated that police has taken 2,147 people, including 973 foreigners who are suspected to be affiliated with DAESH, into custody and arrested 865 so far this year. He said that the important thing is to prevent these people from traveling to Turkey in the first place and that the responsibility for preventing this falls on the shoulders of the EU and other countries.