Washington reiterates its call on European countries to take back their citizens detained by SDF
North-Press Agency
Us President, Donald Trump, called on European countries, on Thursday, to receive their citizens who were involved in the ranks of ISIS in Syria, or face the possibility of their release and return to Europe.
“We have thousands of ISIS fighters that we want Europe to take and let’s see if they take them. And if they don’t take them, we’ll probably have to release them to Europe.” President Donald Trump told reporters on the White House lawn .
Syrian Democratic Forces(SDF) imprison those fighters in their areas of control, in northeastern Syria.
Recently Washington has reiterated and repeated its call for European states to take back their citizens detained by Syrian Democratic Forces.
While U.S. Special Representative for Syria James Jeffrey announced at a press conference that, “The SDF arrests more than 10.000 jihadists, including 8.000 from Iraq and Syria, and 2.000 from more than 50 countries, besides, about 70,000 children and women are added from their families to them.”
For his part, the U.S. Department of State Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Nathan A. Sales said, “These jihadists have not abandoned their ideology and we all have to prevent them from returning to the battlefield.” Stressing that, “The most effective way to do this is, to bring them back to their origin country to be prosecuted for crimes they have committed.”
US-led Global Coalition backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is one of the most prominent forces that has fought ISIS in Syria.
It is noteworthy that most of the countries of origin of the detained ISIS members do ignore them, despite calls from SDF and Autonomous Administration leaders in north and eastern Syria to relieve this burden.
While observers think that some countries refuse to take back the detainees of Islamic State because they have a “security fear” of those who may be difficult to trial and sentence with long-term penalty.
Moreover, observers add that those who pose little or no security risks may be difficult to integrate into society, because of their ideology or experience in wartime, and children who were part of Islamic State group are likely to be stigmatized with no guilt, according to European media.
Earlier, the US Department of State Coordinator for Counter-terrorism Nathan Sales said that there were early signs of progress in persuading some countries to take their citizens back to trial, or at least to prevent them from returning to the battlefield.”
“This message is being responded to now, in a way didn’t exist in the past, and it’s likely that our partner countries realized that the opportunity is limited.” He added.
“As long as the United States is active in northeastern Syria, we can affect the results in a better way, which is why I think you see our partners focusing on this more seriously,” Mr. Nathan Sales said.