Turkish media outlets reported that a Russian man was detained on charges of links to the Daesh terrorist group on Tuesday. The man was caught working under a fake identity at the $20 billion Akkuyu nuclear plant, which is being built by Russian conglomerate Rosatom in the Mediterranean province of Mersin, security sources said.
Police in Mersin said that a Turkish court formally arrested the foreign national. Its statement did not specify the suspect's nationality or give further details on the operation.
In December, Turkish authorities granted permission for the commissioning of the first power-generating unit of Akkuyu, the country's first nuclear power plant. The plant is expected to be fully operational by 2028 and supply 10% of Türkiye’s electricity consumption.
Last week, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said Türkiye had detained 147 people suspected of having ties to Daesh in operations across 33 provinces. Last month, one Turkish citizen was killed by two Daesh gunmen at the Italian Santa Maria Catholic Church in Istanbul. Turkish police detained two people suspected of carrying out the attack.
Daesh remains the second biggest threat of terrorism for Türkiye, which faces security risks from multiple terrorist groups. In 2013, Türkiye became one of the first countries to declare Daesh a terrorist group. The country has since been attacked by the terrorist group multiple times, with over 300 people killed and hundreds more injured in at least 10 suicide bombings, seven bomb attacks and four armed attacks. In response, Türkiye launched counterterrorism operations at home and abroad to prevent further attacks.
Terrorists from Daesh and other groups such as the PKK and its Syrian wing, the YPG, rely on a network of members and supporters in Türkiye. In response, Ankara has been intensifying its crackdown on the terrorists and their links at home, conducting pinpoint operations and freezing assets to eliminate the terrorist groups at their roots. Türkiye deported 9,000 foreign terrorist fighters, mainly from Daesh, from 102 different nationalities, of which 1,168 are from the U.S. or the European Union member countries, since 2011. France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Romania, Sweden and Austria were the leading EU countries in terms of deported foreign terrorists.
