UN chief urges international unity to deal with foreign ISIS prisoners
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The United Nations Secretary-General has called on the international community to rise to the occasion and take back nationals who joined the so-called Islamic State that are currently jailed in Syria and Iraq.
“We need international cooperation to solve the problem,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said during the Paris Peace Forum on Tuesday.
“We cannot just ask Iraq and Syria to solve the problem for everyone,” he added. “There must be real international solidarity.”
Indeed, the question surrounding what to do with the Islamic State prisoners, as well as females with alleged ties to the terror group and their children, has been a prominent one since the fall of the so-called caliphate in March 2018.
Many European and Western nations have been reluctant to take back their nationals for fear they would be released quickly upon trial due to insufficient evidence.
Other nations have pressed the panic button and revoked the citizenship of those who traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State.
The stalemate has only intensified the burden on Syrian Kurdish forces who continue to hold tens of thousands of foreign fighters in makeshift prisons in northern Syria.
The security of these prisons was threatened in early October when Turkey launched a military offensive against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Syrian Kurdish officials have called for the formation of an international tribunal, where the foreign fighters can face trial in Syria.
Iraq, meanwhile, has condemned many foreign Islamic State fighters to death amid allegations of unfair trials and human rights violations. Although against the death penalty, France has agreed to cooperate with Iraq as it continues to hold hearings for French nationals.
Elsewhere, Turkey began to repatriate foreign Islamic State members in its prisons, deporting an American, Dane, and German national on Monday.
A spokesperson for Turkey’s Interior Ministry told state-run Anadolu Agency that Ankara would expel many more foreign fighters in the coming days.