Turkey will begin deporting captured ISIS fighters to their home countries on Monday, according to the country’s interior minister Suleyman Soylu. “Now we are telling you that we are going to send [members of ISIS] back to you. We are starting this on Monday,” Soylu said on Friday.
Turkey holds about 1,200 captured ISIS fighters from different countries, many of them from Europe. Since Turkey began their offensive into northeast Syria they have captured 287 additional ISIS members, including women and children, according to Soylu.
It is not clear how Turkey would even begin to send these ISIS fighters back to their home countries since they are unwanted. Soylu did not go into any details on actual plans.
Many of the ISIS fighters have lost citizenship from their home countries. The UK has revoked citizenship from more than 100 people over links to ISIS and other terrorist groups.
Soylu addressed the revoked citizenship in earlier comments on November 2nd, “Countries can’t just revoke the citizenship of such ex-terrorists and expect Turkey to take care of them; this is unacceptable to us and it’s also irresponsible.”
President Trump has called on European nations to take back captured ISIS fighters that are held in Kurdish-controlled camps in Syria. On October 27th, during the press conference when he announced the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Trump said, “I actually said to them, if you don’t take them, I’m going to drop them right on your border and you can have fun capturing them again.”
There’re boats leaving daily from Libyan ports for Italy. I’m sure President Erdogan will find a way if he’s serious about these terrorist nomads.
Didn’t migrants originating from Turkey usually go through Greece?
Pay close attention to who Turkey decides to “deport”. They won’t be useful as sources of intel and they won’t be easy to re-integrate into society. Read about the drug Captagon. Most of these people are going to be basket cases.
“Countries can’t just revoke the citizenship of such
ex-terrorists and expect Turkey to take care of them; this is
unacceptable to us and it’s also irresponsible.”
NOW the word “irresponsible” comes up?
Trump’s solution is much better. NATO Europe should never have gotten on-board with the ‘salafist principality’ project.
Apparently this is much less simple than it appears. Example: a Mr. X who is in Turkish detention as an ISIS fighter claims that he is a “Schengen” citizen but has no documents to prove it. He might be an Iraqi. In principle the Dutch government can refuse the landing rights for the plane which brings him to Schiphol. While that is unlikely the Dutch government will refuse the entry of Mr. X into “Schengen” until it is clear that he has the right to enter. For the time being he will go straight to a Dutch jail. If the nationality of Mr. X is not established soon then the Dutch government has the right to extradite him as “stateless” to any place outside “Schengen” of his choice.
P.S. Turkey is NOT a “Schengen” country. Other NATO countries outside: Norway and GB. Also: Switzerland and several countries of the former Yugoslavia.