Turkey helped return an Israeli man who planned to join the Islamic State terrorist group. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Turkey has helped return a young Israeli man who planned to join the Islamic State terrorist group to Israel, despite the strained Israeli-Turkish relationship.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it received a call last week from family members who were concerned about their 21-year-old son, who flew to Crete with the intention of traveling on to Syria via Turkey. Based on what he wrote on the Internet, the family feared he was going to join Islamic State in Syria.

Working together, Interpol, the Israeli Embassy in Ankara, the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul, and Turkish authorities were able to track down the youth in Iskenderun, which is near the Turkish-Syrian border.

Ilana Ravid, who serves as the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s director for Israelis abroad, said that “this is a complex and worrisome case, but with the diplomatic work of Israeli representatives in Turkey, and the good will of the Turkish authorities, the situation ended well.”