Iraq says Ankara agrees to take back Turkish citizens among ISIS detainees transferred from Syria

Iraq's foreign minister said on Monday Turkey had agreed to take back Turkish citizens from among thousands of Islamic State detainees transferred to Iraq from Syria when camps and prisons there were shut in recent weeks.

Iraq took in the detainees in an operation arranged with the United States after Kurdish forces retreated and shut down camps and prisons which had housed Islamic State suspects for nearly a decade.

Baghdad has said it will try suspects on terrorism charges in its own legal system, but it has also repeatedly called on other countries to take back their citizens from among the detainees.

Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told U.S. envoy Tom Barrack in a meeting that Iraq was in talks with other countries on the repatriation of their nationals, and had reached an agreement with Turkey.

In a separate statement to the U.N. Human Rights Council, Hussein said: "We would call the states across the world to recover their citizens who've been involved in terrorist acts so that they be tried in their countries of origin."



Reuters