Kerry: Turkey ready to seal border with ISIS area

Turkey is committed to sealing its border along areas in Syria controlled by Islamic State, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday, stressing that Ankara has a vested interest in severing smuggling routes used by the extremist group.

"There is a 98km section of the border remaining to be closed," Kerry said while attending a meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Brussels, adding that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in "complete agreement" with a plan to seal the area off.

"President Erdogan is committed to doing that," Kerry said. Turkey, a Nato member, is also part of a US-led coalition battling ISIS, although it has faced sharp criticism in recent years that it had been reluctant to crack down on the extremist group and turned a blind eye to jihadists heading to Syria.

Reports in the past from Turkey's border with Syria have repeatedly said that Islamic State was smuggling oil, a key source of its revenues, to underground dealers in Turkey. Ankara has since stepped up its border security.