, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.){kind=link}
Ahmet Yıldız, Turkey’s permanent representative to the United Nations, has called on the transitional government in Syria to take over the camps and prisons in the country housing suspected members of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
There are two camps in northeastern Syria, al-Hol and Roj, which hold thousands of alleged ISIL fighters and their family members. The camps are run by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Yıldız, who spoke at a session of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, accused the Kurdish militant groups in northeast Syria such as the SDF and the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) of using the camps’ presence as a pretext to justify their existence.
Ankara views the SDF as linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
The SDF is a key US ally in combating ISIL and is backed by the US with weapons and training.
“It is time to transfer the control of these camps and prisons to the new administration,” Yıldız said, indicating Turkey’s readiness to support Syria in taking control of these camps and prisons.
Yıldız also called on the international community to assist in the repatriation of ISIL detainees from Syria.
The Global Coalition — a group of 87 member states working to defeat ISIL — said in November there were 39,904 people in al-Hol, the population of which has been declining, the coalition said, because of increased repatriations.
Yet many countries, particularly in the West, are refusing to take back their citizens out of security concerns due to their alleged ISIL links.
The Turkish envoy said there is no place for ISIL, the PKK or the YPG in the future of Syria as the country tries to rebuild itself following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in December.
“Putting an end to the existence of these terrorist groups is a prerequisite for a peaceful, independent and politically unified Syria,” Yıldız said, adding that Turkey appreciates the new administration’s determination to fight terrorism and is ready to cooperate with Syria in this effort.
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who paid a visit to Ankara on February 4, expressed a “strong commitment” to fighting terrorism in Syria as he sought to ease Ankara’s concerns about the presence of Kurdish militant groups in northeast Syria.
Damascus’s new rulers have rejected any form of Kurdish self-rule and urged the SDF, which runs a semi-autonomous Kurdish-led administration that controls swaths of the northeast, to hand over their weapons.