Stacked Egyptian passports (Photo: Reuters)
Egypt's airport authorities banned on Friday eight women from travelling to Turkey for failing to produce required security clearances, Cairo airport security director said.
The passengers have been prevented from boarding their planes and were asked to get permits from passports authority, Tarek Fathy, the airport security director, told Ahram Online.
In December 2014, the interior ministry mandated that Egyptian males aged between 18 and 40 years old who wish to travel to Turkey, Iraq or Libya need to acquire security approval from passport control authorities.
The measure, now effectively applied to females as well, aims to control the flow of jihadists to the Islamic State (IS) group, which controls large swathes of Syria and Iraq.
The Turkish-Syrian border provides would-be militants with direct access into the IS-group-controlled northern Syria.
Relations between Egypt and Turkey have soured since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi -- a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
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