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A member of the Islamic State group holds a group flag in Syria (image for illustration). REUTERS / Stringer

Ankara says it will return from Monday November 11 foreign members of the Islamic State (IS) group held in Turkish prisons, said Friday, November 8, Süleyman Soylu, the Turkish Minister of the Interior.

" We tell you that we will send them back to you. We will start from Monday, "said Süleyman Soylu, quoted by the state-run Anadolu news agency. The Turkish minister, however, did not specify which countries were affected by this measure. According to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, more than 1,150 members of the Islamic State (IS) group are currently incarcerated in Turkish prisons.

Turkey regularly calls on European countries to take back their nationals who have joined the ranks of ISIS in Syria, but they are reluctant to recover them, especially for security reasons and unpopularity of such a measure. On November 4, Soylu said that Turkey would return foreign IS fighters to their countries even if they removed their nationality.

How will the Turks go about it?

But difficult to know how the Turks could go to send a person to a country of which she would no longer be technically a national. Long suspected of allowing the jihadists to cross its border to join Syria after the start of the conflict that has torn this country since 2011, Turkey, hit by several attacks committed by the IS, joined the anti-jihadist coalition in 2015.

But Ankara has been accused in recent weeks of weakening the fight against dispersed IS elements by launching an offensive on 9 October against the Kurdish militia of the People's Protection Units (YPG), spearheading the fight against the jihadist organization.

( with AFP )

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