JAKARTA - Indonesia and Turkey have agreed to strengthen their intelligence cooperation as a way to bolster their efforts to combat terrorism and prevent the spread of radicalism. The agreement was achieved in a meeting Thursday between Indonesia’s Pwresident Joko Widodo and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan,

who is on a three-day visit to Indonesia. In a speech earlier in the day Erdogan denied what he described as “black propaganda” that Turkey is assisting terrorist organizations. He said actions by the Islamic State group run against Turkey’s “religion, conscience, customs and tradition.”

Turkey has stopped 16,000 foreigners who were suspected of heading to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside IS, and it has deported about 1,600 of them to their home countries. More than 1,300 have been arrested and detained.(AP)