Turkey and the US announced the creation of a fund to fight against extremism fueled by jihadist groups in countries such as Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan, which have become targets of terrorist groups in recent attacks.

The initiative was announced at the Global Counterterrorism Forum in New York later on Friday by US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoğlu, the New York Times reported, citing State Department officials.

According to the report of the New York Times published on Friday, Turkey and the US have been preparing to declare a $200 million fund, called the Global Fund for Community Engagement and Resilience, which is planned to be administered in Geneva. The fund, to be put into action by mid-2014, will finance both government and nongovernment entities to define the reliable local organizations, to launch and monitor programs and shift funds to local projects whose field of study concerns groups or individuals with a tendency to participate in terrorist groups.

The fund will be based on other international funds to combat epidemic diseases like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

The report says the US will make a $2-3 million contribution to the fund. Apart from Turkey and the US, other contributors to the fund are the EU, Britain, Canada, Qatar and Denmark. With help from private sources, the fund launched against extremism is expected to raise more than $200 million over a 10-year period.

According to the report, the fund will also enable vocational training to youths vulnerable to recruitment from terrorist organizations as well as new school curriculums focused on problem solving. The fund will set up websites and online social networks to supply information to young people on the dangers of extremist ideologies. Within the scope of the Global Fund for Community Engagement and Resilience, a center in Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, will be set up to counter violent extremism.

Recent attacks in Kenya and Pakistan showed large-scale terrorist acts are the result of increasing extremism. Somali al-Qaeda-linked rebel group al-Shabab attacked a shopping mall in Kenya killing at least 68 people on Sept. 21. A 33-year-old ethnic Turkish woman, Elif Yavuz, who was eight months pregnant, was also among dozens who were killed during the assault.

Speaking in New York on Friday, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu extended condolences to the family of Yavuz and said he planned to meet with them in New York. Davutoğlu will leave New York at the weekend.

The decision to create a fund to combat extremism came after the recent statements of Davutoğlu and President Abdullah Gül drawing attention to extremist acts in Syrian towns, close to the Turkish border.

In his speech at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York, on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly meetings on Thursday, Gül expressed Turkey’s concerns about the violence in Syria and said the continuing clashes will prepare the ground for radicalization of ordinary citizens. Failure by the international community to put an end to the conflict will result in the deaths of many more people and exacerbate the problem of radicalism since “the continuation of the conflict creates such an environment that an ordinary citizen is transformed into a radical extremist,” he said.

Gül expressed his concerns to US President Barack Obama at Thursday’s lunch. According to reports in the Turkish media, Gül told Obama that if incidents continue in Syria, civilians will start to be radicalized and Turkey and the Middle East region will be affected by extremist acts.

Davutoğlu also spoke against the radicalism in Syria and accused the Syrian regime of triggering terrorist acts, intolerance and sectarianism, at a meeting of the Friends of Syria group on Thursday.

Turkey’s concerns about extremist acts in Syria increased with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) seizing Azaz, a Syrian town only 10 kilometers from the Öncüpınar border gate in the Turkish province of Kilis, after clashes between fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and militants from the al-Qaeda-affiliated ISIS.

Source: Today’s Zaman