Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday pressed U.S. allies to bring back citizens arrested overseas for joining the Islamic State group, warning they could not be held indefinitely in Syria.
Mr. Blinken made the appeal in Rome at a meeting of an 83-member coalition on defeating the extremist network, where he and host Italy called for greater attention to the threat in Africa.
About 10,000 suspected Islamic State fighters are being held in northern Syria by Western-allied Kurdish fighters, according to U.S. estimates.
“This situation is simply untenable. It just can’t persist indefinitely,” Mr. Blinken said.
“The United States continues to urge countries — including coalition partners — to repatriate, rehabilitate and, where applicable, prosecute its citizens,” he said.
France, U.K. opposed
France and Britain, two of the closest U.S. allies, have been major holdouts against calls to bring back their citizens, which were also made by former President Donald Trump’s administration.
Both nations have painful experiences with attacks and see little incentive and plenty of political cost to bringing back radicalised citizens who are already jailed overseas.
Mr. Blinken praised Italy as one of the few Western European nations that repatriate its citizens and also hailed efforts by Central Asian nations — such as Kazakhstan, which he said had brought back 600 fighters and their family members and put them in rehabilitation programmes.
According to a Human Rights Watch, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces are holding over 63,000 women and children of suspected IS fighters from over 60 nations in two camps surrounded by barbed wire.