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Syria’s interim government is ready to take control of Isis detainee camps currently run by US-backed Kurdish militants, Turkey’s foreign minister has said during a visit to Damascus.
Turkey’s top diplomat Hakan Fidan became the first foreign minister to travel to Syria to meet Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who also goes by his birth name Ahmed al-Sharaa. HTS led the offensive that recently overthrew former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
“The Syrian administration told us it is ready to take the necessary initiative to take over these prisoners,” Fidan said on Sunday.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which helped defeat Isis with US air support, guards about 10,000 captured fighters as well as thousands of their family members at camps in eastern Syria. Washington has warned that Isis may try to exploit Syria’s current instability and retains about 2,000 US special forces in the area.
The Turkish government has called for the People’s Defence Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia that dominates the SDF, to disband as it deems their self-administration along Turkey’s southern border to be a national security threat.
Turkey also accuses the YPG of being an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, resulting in the death of 40,000 people.
Fidan said on Sunday that western nations had allowed the YPG to “illegally” occupy almost a third of Syrian territory in exchange for keeping Isis detainees locked up in Syria, but said he believed US president-elect Donald Trump would soon change course.
“When you look at this from the perspective of US interests, when you do the math, is Turkey important or is a terrorist group like the PKK important? Mr Trump sees the math right away,” he said.
Turkey was willing to “provide the strongest support” in fighting Isis, Fidan added.
HTS leader Jolani said bringing Syria’s various armed groups under control was a top priority and that his administration would announce the new structure of the defence ministry and military within days. “We will not allow any weapons to be outside the state, whether from the revolutionary factions or from the factions present in the SDF region,” he said.
Turkey, the most outspoken backer of Syria’s rebels in their 13-year war against Assad, has pledged to help rebuild its neighbour and called on the international community to engage with Syria’s new leaders. Fidan said he hoped his visit would encourage other governments to send high-level officials.
“We believe the new administration in Damascus will take appropriate steps to ensure Syria’s territorial integrity and political sovereignty. In my meeting with [Jolani], I heard the framework for that vision,” said Fidan.
Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt also met Jolani on Sunday, with both men calling for a reset in relations between the two nations, which have been marked by tensions for decades.
Jumblatt, who holds the previous regime responsible for the 1977 assassination of his politician father, had previously declared that he would only return to Damascus after the fall of the Assad government.
Jolani called for a break from that troubled past, saying the former Syrian government “was a source of concern and disturbance”.
“The coming Syria in this new era will stand at the same distance from everyone in Lebanon and there will not be any case of negative interference,” he added.
