FILE PHOTO: Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu speaks during a news conference for foreign media correspondents in Istanbul, Turkey, August 21, 2019. Ahmet Bolat/Pool via REUTERs
November 19, 2019
ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey will have repatriated most of its Islamic State detainees to their home countries by the end of the year, the interior minister told Reuters on Monday of the process that began last week.
Turkish authorities started repatriating the jihadists on Nov. 11. Ankara says it has captured 287 militants in northeast Syria, where Turkish troops launched an assault against the Kurdish YPG militia last month, and has hundreds more suspects in detention.
“The number of detainees to be repatriated by the year-end depends on how long the processes take, but especially for Europe, the process is underway,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told Reuters in Ankara.
“I think we will have sent a large part of them to their countries by the end of the year,” he added.
(Reporting by Orhan Coskun and Dominic Evans; Writing by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Jonathan Spicer)
