TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced that the government would not plan to repatriate some 600 Indonesians who joined ISIS in Syria. If the media referred them as former supporters of the terrorist group, he called them as former Indonesians who join ISIS.

"The government has no plan to repatriate those people there, the former Indonesians joining ISIS," said the President, emphasizing his sentence at the State Palace in Jakarta, today, February 12.

With a smile on his face, the President did not explain clearly about the citizenship status of those who are classified as cross-country terrorists or foreign terrorist fighters (FTF) in ISIS or other countries.

He stated that those people had chosen their own destiny and were no longer the responsibility of the country. "It’s their own decision, so of course they must have calculated everything."

Nevertheless, Jokowi still asked his staffers to identify the Indonesians who left the country to join ISIS.

Earlier, Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Mahfud Md said the government would collect valid data on the number of Indonesian nationals who joined ISIS. Citing the latest data, Mahfud said there are 689 people currently residing overseas, mainly in Syria and Turkey.

DEWI NURITA