Turkey will have repatriated most of its Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) detainees to their home countries by the end of the year, the interior minister told Reuters on Tuesday of the process that began last week.
Turkish authorities started repatriating the jihadists on Nov. 11. Ankara says it has captured 287 militants in northeast Syria, where Turkish troops launched an assault against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia last month, and has hundreds more suspects in detention.
“The number of detainees to be repatriated by year-end depends on how long the process takes, but especially for Europe, the process is underway,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told Reuters in Ankara.
“I think we will have sent a large part of them to their countries by the end of the year,” he added.