Turkey wants to send IS prisoners back to EU home countries

Turkey feels left alone by European countries in dealing with IS extremists. The government announced that all captured IS fighters from Europe should leave the country.

Turkey took control of a 120-kilometer border strip last month with an offensive against the Kurdish militia YPG in northeastern Syria. In the process, the military also arrested some members of the Islamist militia IS, who had fled there from prisons in the course of the offensive. According to the Turkish Ministry of Interior, they should return to their home countries in Europe as soon as possible.

"Turkey not a hotel for IS members"

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said Turkey is "not a hotel for IS members". Soylu criticized that the European states left Turkey alone on the issue of dealing with the IS prisoners. This is unacceptable and irresponsible. Countries like Great Britain or the Netherlands, from which some of the prisoners from the Turkish North Syria offensive came, made it easy in this way. How many IS fighters were captured did not mention Soylu.

Turkey started the military offensive against the Kurdish militia YPG on 9 October, which was stopped after eight days initially by a ceasefire negotiated with the US. Last week, Moscow - as the protector of Syria's ruler Bashar al-Assad - and Ankara agreed to jointly control northern Syrian border areas with Turkey.

UN examines Turkish plans to settle refugees in northern Syria

Ankara sees in the YPG a Syrian branch of the banned Kurdish Workers' Party PKK and fights it as a terrorist organization. Several European countries have so far refused to recapture IS supporters who had captured the Kurdish YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Since Friday, the UN has been reviewing plans by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to locate millions of Syrian refugees currently living in Turkey in conquered areas in northern Syria. According to the United Nations, UN Secretary-General António Guterres met Erdogan in Istanbul to hear about the Turkish plans.

Dozens of dead and injured by car bomb 

At least 15 people were killed and more than 30 injured in the explosion of a car bomb in the northern Syrian city of Tall Abyad. According to medical experts, the explosion occurred in the city center in front of a gas station. Most of the injured were taken to Turkish hospitals because they could not be treated in the city itself. Who is behind the attack is still unclear.  

Tall Abjad is located on the border with Turkey in the so-called security zone that Turkey has built in northern Syria. There had already been several explosions of car bombs in nearby towns this week.