Arab News

03 January 2017

By BEN FLANAGAN



JEDDAH: Citizens of the UAE have been warned against traveling to Turkey following the deadly Daesh-claimed attack on a packed Istanbul nightclub, in which 39 people were killed.



The news came as a travel expert warned that Turkey’s tourism industry will suffer after a string of terror strikes in Istanbul and elsewhere.

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation issued the travel warning to its citizens on Monday, in the wake of the New Year’s Day attack.





The statement called on UAE citizens to avoid traveling to Turkey for the time being and until further notice.



Twenty-five of those killed at the Reina nightclub on the shores of the Bosphorus were foreigners, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.



They included nationals of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Morocco, Libya, Israel, India, Canada, a Turkish-Belgian dual citizen and a Franco-Tunisian woman.



Daesh claimed responsibility for the bloody attack, which was carried out by a lone gunman who remains at large.



The terrorist group has been blamed for at least half a dozen attacks on civilian targets in Turkey over the past 18 months.



The most recent attack came five months after a failed military coup, in which more than 240 people were killed, many of them in Istanbul.

Travel and aviation expert Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at the UK-based StrategicAero Research, said that the numerous terror attacks would likely see Turkey’s tourism industry suffer.



“Having done nothing to prevent people filtering into Syria to join an array of terror groups like (Daesh)... Turkey is now on the front line from those very same folks crossing back and causing carnage,” he told Arab News.



“This will damage Turkey’s appeal as a holiday destination as well as call into question what politicians can actually do to stem these attacks, because right now, there doesn’t seem to be any cohesive policy to prevent or bolster intelligence.”