France should repatriate French jihadists imprisoned in Syria, Turkey says

“If France has anything to do, it is to take its own citizens, bring them to its own prisons and judge them,” said this Friday, the head of Turkish diplomacy Hakan Fidan, in reference to the French jihadists imprisoned in Syria.

“They don’t care about our safety”

France does not take Turkey’s security into account regarding the issue of foreign jihadists detained in Syria, he added during a press conference organized in Istanbul.

“They have such a policy that they do not bring prisoners” of the jihadist group “Islamic State” into their own country. But they don’t care about our safety. (…) They always put forward their own demands,” he said.

In response to a question about a call by Kurdish forces for the deployment of French troops in northeastern Syria, Fidan clarified that the United States is Turkey’s only interlocutor on this subject.

“We frankly don’t pay attention to countries that use America’s power and hide behind it to advance their own interests. Our interlocutor on this issue is America. We are talking to America. Not with the countries behind it,” he said.

The overthrow of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad last month raised the possibility of direct Turkish intervention in Syria against Kurdish YPG forces.

Ankara accuses the YPG, the backbone of the FDS and considered by the West as essential in the fight against the jihadists of the Islamic State, of links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), banned in Turkey.