By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, Jan 22 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that Washington welcomed Iraq’s initiative to detain Islamic State members in secure facilities in Iraq while also urging nations to repatriate their citizens in these facilities “to face justice.”
“The United States welcomes the Government of Iraq’s initiative to detain ISIS terrorists in secure facilities in Iraq, following recent instability in northeast Syria,” Rubio said in a statement.
“Non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily; the United States urges countries to take responsibility and repatriate their citizens in these facilities to face justice.”
Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said on Thursday it would begin legal proceedings against Islamic State detainees transferred from Syria, a day after the U.S. military announced its forces had transferred 150 of the suspected militants from Syria to Iraq.
The U.S. military has said its operation could eventually see 7,000 detainees moved out of Syria.
The United Nations said it was taking management responsibility for vast camps in Syria housing tens of thousands of women and children associated with the Islamic State, after the rapid collapse of Kurdish-led forces who guarded them for years.
Iraq has begun taking in detainees transferred from prisons in Syria as the Kurds retreat, and has called on other countries to help take them in.
“This is a critical part of a long-term framework to prevent an ISIS resurgence, in line with proper burden sharing among Coalition members,” Rubio said on Thursday.
More than 10,000 members of the Islamic State, and tens of thousands of women and children associated with them, have been held for years in about a dozen prisons and detention camps guarded by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria’s northeast.
The SDF has rapidly retreated this week after clashes with Syrian government forces, raising concern about security at prisons and humanitarian conditions at the camps.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio)
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