Turkey claims Kurds released IS prisoners
TURKISH Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said yesterday Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters had emptied a jail holding Islamic State prisoners in a part of Syria where Ankara is mounting an offensive, and that the prisoners there had been abducted.
Turkey launched a cross-border operation against the YPG militia in northeastern Syria last week, after US President Donald Trump decided to withdraw forces from two posts in the area in a move that drew strong international criticism.
The Turkish assault has prompted alarm that it could allow Islamic State (IS) militants to escape Kurdish-run prisons in northern Syria and regroup. Ankara has dismissed those concerns.
Turkey’s stated objective is to clear its southern frontier region of the YPG, which it views as a terrorist organization, and form a “safe zone” 30km into Syrian territory where it wants to settle millions of Syrian refugees. Ankara also pledged to take responsibility for IS militants within the “safe zone,” but said it would not be accountable for others.
Speaking to reporters in Ankara yesterday, Akar said the YPG had emptied the only Islamic State prison that Turkish forces had so far reached in the envisaged “safe zone” area, and that the inmates had already been removed.
“As you know, there is a prison issue on this Daesh (Islamic State) topic. We are determined to show the utmost effort on these prisons. However, there was only one prison in our region, a Daesh prison,” Akar said.
“When we went there, we saw that it had been emptied by the YPG and the Islamic State militants there had been abducted. We determined this through photographs and film, talked to our counterpart, and will continue to do so,” he added.
Akar did not say how many prisoners were believed to have been taken from the jail, nor did he elaborate on who had taken the prisoners and where. There was no immediate YPG comment.
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