UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres says the home countries of Daesh terrorists captured in Iraq and Syria must take back their militant nationals.
“We need international cooperation to solve the problem,” Guterres, who is attending the Paris Peace Forum alongside some 30 world leaders, told France’s RTL radio. “We cannot just ask Iraq and Syria to solve the problem for everyone. There must be real international solidarity.”
He said the wives and children of those terrorists must also be taken back and reintegrated into their respective societies.
Turkey, which neighbors both Iraq and Syria, has already started deporting captured Daesh terrorists to their home countries.
The Turkish army launched a cross-border offensive into northeastern Syria in a declared attempt to clear hostile Kurdish militants from border areas on October 9. Several terrorists escaped from a prison in northeastern Syria following the Turkish operation. Turkey says its troops have managed to capture some of those runaway Daesh terrorists.
The European Commission has announced that more than 2,500 people who once left various European countries to join the Daesh terrorist group in Iraq or Syria are currently unaccounted for.
Western countries have been reluctant to take back their militant nationals and their families.
A number of European countries, including France, have started talks with Iraqi officials to convince them to hold trials for and keep the militants in Iraq.
Daesh has already been driven out of all of its urban bastions both in Iraq and Syria, but its remnants carry out sporadic terror attacks in the two Arab countries.