ISTANBUL: Turkiye, the United States, Syria and Iraq have formed a working group to try to resolve the issue of Daesh group prisoners held in Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in comments published Thursday.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, control large parts of northeast Syria bordering Turkiye and Iraq and oversee more than a dozen prison camps holding thousands of suspected Daesh — also known as Islamic State or IS — fighters and their families.
US President Donald Trump asked the Syrian government to “assume responsibility” for some 9,000 Daesh prisoners when he met Syrian President President Ahmad Al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia on May 14.
Erdogan said a committee had been formed to work out what to do with the prisoners, particularly women and children held at refugee camps such as Al-Hol in northern Syria. His comments on the presidential website were released as he returned from a trip to Hungary.
“Iraq needs to focus on the issue of the camps,” Erdogan said. “The vast majority of women and children in the Al Hol camp in particular belong to Iraq and Syria. They should do what is necessary for them.”
In 2014, Daesh declared a caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria and attracted tens of thousands of supporters from around the world. The extremists were defeated by a US-led coalition in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019. Tens of thousands of people linked to the group were taken to Al-Hol camp close to the Iraqi border.
It is anticipated that the government in Damascus will take control of the prison camps, a move Erdogan said would make it easier to integrate the Kurdish forces in Syria.
Kurdish fighters in Syria have ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which on May 12 agreed to dissolve and lay down its weapons following a four-decade insurgency against Turkiye.
 

GENEVA: Fighting back tears, the head of the World Health Organization on Thursday urged Israel to have “mercy” in the Gaza war and insisted peace would be in Israel’s own interests.
In an emotional intervention at the WHO annual assembly, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the war was hurting Israel and would not bring a lasting solution.
“I can feel how people in Gaza would feel at the moment. I can smell it. I can visualize it. I can hear even the sounds. And this is because of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder),” said Tedros, 60, who has often recalled his own wartime upbringing in Ethiopia.
“You can imagine how people are suffering. It’s really wrong to weaponize food. It’s very wrong to weaponize medical supplies.”
The United Nations on Thursday began distributing around 90 truckloads of aid which are the first deliveries into Gaza since Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2.
Tedros said only a political solution could bring a meaningful peace.
“A call for peace is actually in the best interests of Israel itself. I feel that the war is hurting Israel itself and it will not bring a lasting solution,” he said.
“I ask if you can have mercy. It’s good for you and good for the Palestinians. It’s good for humanity.”

WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said that 2.1 million people in Gaza were “in imminent danger of death.”
“We need to end the starvation, we need to release all hostages and we need to resupply and bring the health system back online,” he said.
“As an ex-hostage, I can say that all hostages should be released. Their families are suffering. Their families are in pain,” he added.
The WHO said Gazans were suffering acute shortages of food, water, medical supplies, fuel and shelter.
Four major hospitals have had to suspend medical services in the past week, due to their proximity to hostilities or evacuation zones, and attacks.
Only 19 of the Gaza Strip’s 36 hospitals remain operational, with staff working in “impossible conditions,” the UN health agency said in a statement.
“At least 94 percent of all hospitals in the Gaza Strip are damaged or destroyed,” it said, while north Gaza “has been stripped of nearly all health care.”
It said that across the Palestinian territory, only 2,000 hospital beds remained available — a figure “grossly insufficient to meet the current needs.”
“The destruction is systematic. Hospitals are rehabilitated and resupplied, only to be exposed to hostilities or attacked again. This destructive cycle must end.”