ISIS operatives in Turkey between arrest, deportation and execution

Zaher Bey-Ankara

The issue of ISIS prisoners has reappeared strongly with Ankara's announcement to start their repatriation, amid international confusion over who will take responsibility, and European countries' refusal to receive and prosecute their detained citizens.

Turkey has often criticized its European allies for refusing to take back their citizens who fought with the group, and warned that it would send captured militants back home even if they were deprived of their nationalities.

Turkish threat
The Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Monday during his participation in the opening of a training program for the Turkish police forces in the capital Ankara "We tell them: We will return to you these." He did not say which countries will be deported to them, or how it will be, stressing that "Turkey is not a hotel for ISIS nationals of other countries."

A few days ago, Souilo revealed that Turkey was holding about 1,200 foreign ISIS operatives, and had arrested 287 of them during its recent operation in northern Syria.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last Thursday that Turkey has 1149 members of the organization are in its prisons, 737 of them European citizens.

There are 12 deportation centers in Turkey, which currently have 813 "militants", most of whom will be sent to countries in the European Union, TRT said.

Under the 1961 New York Convention, it is illegal to revoke citizenship, but many countries - including Britain and France - have not ratified it. Recent cases have provoked lengthy legal battles.

Britain stripped more than 100 people of their nationalities on suspicion of joining jihadist groups abroad.

Prominent cases such as the case of British young woman Shamima Begum and Jack Lets have triggered lengthy court proceedings and a heated political debate in Britain.

Iraq or the borders of Europe
In this context, a source in the Department of Communication in the Presidency of the Turkish Republic of the island Net they find it difficult to deport these large numbers of detainees to the countries of nationality in the light of the lack of cooperation with them, pointing out that Poland has revoked the citizenship of its citizens detained in Turkey.

The source pointed out that the continued imprisonment of these follow-up and trial costs Turkey a lot of money, pointing out that one of the solutions is to deport them to Iraq to get their penalty there.

He added that the Turkish leadership may use these elements and pressure paper on European countries that refuse to receive them by sending them to the borders of those countries.

The source confirmed that the wife of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his son and the wife of his son, who Ankara announced their arrest recently, are being held by the authorities in a special deportation hall for deportation.

For his part, said the writer and former adviser to the Turkish government Cahit Toz that Turkey arrested many elements of the Islamic State in Syria after the operation "spring of peace", and said that according to recent developments, the organization has already ended on the ground.

Toz told Al Jazeera Net that "Ankara has been following the same procedures for years against terrorist organizations, sending those arrested to his country, and therefore these measures are not born of the moment, and those countries should not shirk from the agreements signed with Turkey in this regard."

The fate of the detainees
Bader Mulla Rashid, a Kurdish researcher at the Omran Center in Istanbul, said that the dossier of ISIS detainees held in countries and regional parties lacks systematic procedures regarding the issue of their return.Many of their countries of nationality refuse to receive them, and most prefer to try them in the places where they were arrested.

Mulla Rashid said that the fate of the Syrian detainees needs to find a mechanism of communication between the Syrian and Turkish side, but the reality of the relationship between the two sides stand in the way of reaching a consensus soon. Citizens of Syria and Iraq may also face death sentences, which prevents them from being deported.

He explained that the security situation in Syria and Iraq is not stable, the Syrian regime, which appears in a state of "weakness and weakness," may exploit this file as he did in the beginning of the Syrian revolution, where he released a large number of "extremists."

In Iraq, the spokesman added that Abu Ghraib prison is still present in mind through the escape of hundreds of prisoners from the elements of the organization in 2014.

According to the Kurdish researcher, Turkey on Monday deported an ISIS operative who was said to have American citizenship to the Turkish-Greek border gate.

The Greek authorities refused to receive the man who remained in the neutral zone between the two countries.