It will be up to the next government to decide whether Belgian foreign fighters held in prisons and camps in Syria should be brought back to Belgium, Foreign minister Bernard Quintin has said.
“Such a decision should be taken by a full government,” Quintin said in the Turkish capital Ankara, where he met Turkish Foreign minister Hakan Fidan.
Quintin is a minister in Belgium’s outgoing government, which has been running affairs for more than six months while negotiations for a next government continue.
Transition period
Quintin and Fidan discussed the situation in Syria following the ousting of former president Bashar al-Assad and the establishment of a interim government.
The Kurds, who run the prisons and camps in northern Syria, fear a resurgence of Islamic State and offensives by Turkish-backed armed groups during this uncertain transition period.
National security
For Belgium, as for other European countries, the situation is “a matter of national security”, said Quintin. “What is important for us is that the security of the camps is guaranteed,” he said.
For its part, Turkey believes that the prisoners, who are being held indefinitely and without trial, “should be taken back by the states of which they are nationals,” Fidan said.
Kurdish militia
Fidan added that the prisons and camps are “guarded by the PKK”, referring to the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia that aims to establish an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria.
Turkey considers the YPG to be an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and considers both groups to be terrorist organisations.
That is why Turkey wants “the Syrian government to take over the security of the camps and prisons,” Fidan said. “And if that is not possible, Turkey is ready to help,” he added.
Belgian Foreign minister Bernard Quintin in Ankara on the first day of his visit to Turkey © PHOTO HANDOUT ERIC HERCHAFT
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