Syria’s new government ready to run Isis detainee camps, Turkish minister says

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Syria’s interim government is ready to take control of ISIS prison camps run by US-backed Kurdish militants, Turkey’s foreign minister said during a visit to Damascus.

Ankara’s top diplomat Hakan Fidan is the first foreign minister to visit Syria to meet the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Abu Mohammad Al Jolani, who also goes by his birth name Ahmed Al-Shara. HTS led the offensive that ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“The Syrian administration has told us that they are ready to take the necessary steps to take these prisoners,” Fidan said Sunday.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which was helped defeat Isis by US air support, guard about 10,000 captured fighters as well as thousands of their family members in camps in eastern Syria. Washington has warned that IS could try to exploit Syria’s instability and keep about 2,000 US special forces in the area.

The Turkish government has called for the disbandment of the People’s Defense Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia that dominates the SDF, as it considers their self-rule along Turkey’s southern border a national security threat.

Turkey also accuses the YPG of being an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, killing 40,000 people.

Fidan said on Sunday that Western countries had allowed the YPG to “illegally” seize nearly a third of Syria in return. Isis is a prisoner Blockade in Syria, but he believes US President-elect Donald Trump will soon change course.

“When you look at it from the point of view of US interests, when you do the math, is Türkiye important or are terrorist groups like the PKK important? Mr. Trump looks at the math right now,” he said.

Fidan added that Türkiye is willing to provide “the strongest support” in the fight against ISIS.

Zolani said bringing Syria’s armed groups under control was a priority and his administration would announce the structure of the defense ministry and military within days. “We will not allow any weapons to remain outside the state, whether from the revolutionary group or factions present in SDF territory,” he said.

Turkey, the most outspoken backer of Syrian rebels in the 13-year war against Assad, has pledged to help its neighbor rebuild and called on the international community to engage with Syria’s new leaders. Fidan said he hoped his visit would encourage other governments to send high-level officials.

“We believe the new administration in Damascus will take appropriate steps to ensure Syria’s territorial integrity and political sovereignty. In my meeting with [Jolani]I heard the framework of that vision,” Fidan said.

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblot also met with Jolani on Sunday, with both men calling for the restoration of relations between the two countries, which have been marked by decades of tension.

Jumblot, who first blamed the Assad regime for the 1977 assassination of his politician father, had previously announced that he would return to Damascus only after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government.

Zolani called for a break from that troubled past, saying Syria’s former regime was a “cause of anxiety and instability”.

“In this new era, the coming Syria will stand at the same distance from all of Lebanon and there will be no cases of negative interference,” he added.