Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu on Saturday threatened to return ISIS prisoners to their countries of origin in European countries.
On the European position, which Turkey says has made it unilaterally dealing with the issue of prisoners, the Turkish minister commented: "This is unacceptable to us and irresponsible as well .. We will send members of ISIS detainees to their country." According to Reuters.
Turkey has detained some ISIS fugitives in northeast Syria over the past month after it launched a military offensive there.
The Turkish threat comes as ISIS prisoners, in northern Syria, have turned into a pressure card on European countries that see the return of militants as a threat to their national security, especially as they have been the target of several terrorist attacks in the past.
Earlier, US President Donald Trump had threatened to take ISIS prisoners to the borders of European countries if countries such as France and Germany did not recapture militants with citizenship.
Trump says that his country will not bear the burden of imprisoning those militants, stressing that European countries do not cooperate very much in the issue of "ISIS", thousands of them are in prisons run by Kurdish forces.
More recently, Turkey's aggression on northern Syria has raised Western fears of militant infiltration, especially as Ankara's military operation has weakened Kurdish militants in the region, having played a prominent role in defeating ISIS.
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed recently in a US military operation in northwestern Syria, but Washington believes that the group is not yet finalized despite losing 100 percent of the territory.
The United States says it will maintain its military presence, northeast of Syria, to avoid oil fields falling into the hands of ISIS, which could secure funding for militants.
By Alexander James November 02, 2019
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