AIBU to stop ex-DP taking DS to Turkey?

[TinyDancer69]

I split with DS' father a year ago. He was an EA bully and cheated from when DS was a tiny baby. I am happier now than I was with him and DS sees him regularly. Life is much better. He is good to DS but can still be a bully to me.

Anyway the issue is he wants to take DS to Turkey in the summer on holiday and I'm afraid I'm just so worried about this. My worry is simply the terrorist threat at the moment and as Turkey borders Syria I am deeply worried. I have never been difficult or unreasonable about ex-DP's access to DS / in fact I actively encourage it. This is simply about my fears in the current climate. Predictably ex DP thinks I'm mad and my fears are unfounded.

If I agree to this and something happened I couldn't live with myself.

I love Turkey and have holidayed there several times so this is not about me being irrational or ignorant.

AIBU to refuse to give ex DP consent to take DS?

IMHO you're not being unreasonable - I assume it's not booked yet- could you say you're happy for him to go away but just not to Turkey ?

I personally wouldn't go to Turkey at the moment so yanbu.

YANBU, there have been a lot of bombings there recently and the border is not secure. The US has put out warnings for citizens travelling there and tourists are a target. Bookings are down over 50% despite rock bottom prices. No way in hell would I let a child of mine go there.

Thank you all. You have confirmed my own fears. If he was a more sensible and reasonable person I wouldn't hesitate to refuse consent. But he is a bully and will shout me down like he always does.
However this is for my son so I'll make the call.

Orchidflower: that's what I'll suggest as I have no issue with him taking my DS on holiday. Just not to a country bordering a war zone!

Here's the current travel advice for Turkey

It's not good, and I wouldn't go myself.

Thanks for this Raspberry - I'm so worried about this and cannot understand why on earth of all the holiday destinations he would choose Turkey at this time😟

Because it is cheap!

Yes I believe that is right Oyster. Knowing him as I do sadly. This is a man who took DS on holiday in March for a week and refused to tell me where he was going...I let it go because I have DS's passport and knew he couldn't take him out of the country.

What a helmet

YANBU! No way!

It depends whereabouts in Turkey. If you avoid the South East and the big cities it will be fine. Would you avoid Paris? London is a likely target too.

I don't understand this! What if he said he was taking him to Berlin? Or Paris? London? Would you have the same reaction?

Aside from that, it's not ISIS that are bombing Turkey. It's politics, mostly the Kurdish Workers Party. Bombing the capital. Not tourist destinations, hence why there have been no tourists killed in Turkey recently. Unlike other cities and countries which some deem as "safe"

We're off in August. Have been going for 16 years, this year will be no different.

We're going in July. Not anywhere near the Syria border. And it wasn't particularly cheap either!

Please ignore "no tourists killed in Turkey recently"

Where in Turkey? It's a big country.

FWIW we are going there again this summer. We can't stop living because of fear.

Meanwhile, ISIS is reportedly planning to bomb European beaches this summer.

The Foreign Office advice only applies to places within 10km of the Syrian border, plus Diyarbakir which has been a PKK stronghold for a long, long time (like, since I went to live in Turkey in 1990). They are going to be just as safe outside those areas as anywhere else. If I were risk averse I'd probably stay away from the main tourist bits of Istanbul, but apart from that, it's really a microscopic risk. Probably less, frankly, than walking around in the centre of London.

Actually London is very safe. Our security services are some of the best in the world and have foiled so many plots apparently terrorists have largely given up trying large scale plots as they just can't get away with them.

We still have fairly good control over our borders and a pretty good idea of who and what is coming in and out, plus we have strong and effective controls on chemicals which can be used to do mass scale harm and it's very, very hard to get hold of the sort of automatic weapons needed for mass slaughter.

None of these things apply to Turkey with it's porous border for both weapons and people. Plus if Turkey actually does stop people travelling from there to the EU as they're supposed to then it would make sense for ISIS to take their attacks to Westerners in Turkey.

I'd take London over Turkey any day.

Plus their are always bullish people in these threads saying it's all perfectly safe...most notably about Tunisia last spring.

Which turned out not to be the best advice in the world....

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2335951-AIBU-to-not-allow-ExH-to-take-DC-to-Tunisia-next-month

"Our security services are some of the best in the world and have foiled so many plots apparently terrorists have largely given up trying large scale plots as they just can't get away with them."

Bless Is that what UK press says these days?

In actual fact, it is nearly impossible to stop the killer who is fine with dying himself - i.e. suicide bomber. I was in Covent Garden in London just two weeks ago, and there was no security anywhere. Any one of a thousand people could have bombs strapped around his torso and could have taken out at least a hundred people watching one of those popular street shows. Same with the underground. Just beep your Oyster card and go in. Detonate at rush hour in a fast train and you can take out hundreds.

No doubt you see where I'm going with this. There don't take a lot of planning and organisation and can have massive impact. It is laughable to believe that would-be terrorists in the UK have given up because security services are oh so clever

Having said that, you can't stop living because you might be in the wrong place at the wrong time for an extremely unlikely event that might or might not happen at some place in a large country.

I don't, anyway.

These don't take a lot of planning...

Well I'm taking my Dc's to Turkey this summer (on the med coast)and really I'm less worried about the threat of attack than I would be visiting any tourist attraction or major city in the uk.

FOA advice states that the current UK Terror status is 'severe' compared with 'high' for turkey.............

Raspberry unless the OP's Ex is planning on visiting an area near the Syria border the link you posted is really relevant . Turkey is a county that covers 302,500 square miles and to put that into perspective england only covers 50,350 sqm so the usual holiday destinations are no where near to the areas of concern.

Sorry OP but I really do think that unless you are prepared for your DS not to venture anywhere other than a sleeply English village well away from any major cities and tourist attractions then you are being unreasonable.

Follow the advice here: www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/turkey
If FCO advise against the area he's planning on going then that would cause problems re: travel insurance, repatriation etc so I think you would be entitled to use that as a way to say no. If they don't then unfortunately I think you might have an uphill battle...

As others have said the main tourist resorts around Izmir, Bodrum, Kusadasi are 700 miles from the Syrian border. That is a LONG way. Like saying you won't go to Cornwall because something happened in Inverness.

How would you stop him? Its not against fco advice to travel there.

Is your ex-h of Turkish/similar descent?

Just wondering if that is your worry?

I'd let him go.