US Counterterrorism Coordinator Nathan Sales will visit Turkey this week to address the issue of foreign fighters and efforts to combat the Islamic State terror group (banned in Russia) among other issues, the US State Department announced in a release on Wednesday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th June, 2019) US Counterterrorism Coordinator Nathan Sales will visit Turkey this week to address the issue of foreign fighters and efforts to combat the Islamic State terror group (banned in Russia) among other issues, the US State Department announced in a release on Wednesday."Ambassador Nathan A. Sales, the State Department's Coordinator for Counterterrorism, will travel to Ankara, Turkey during the week of June 10th," the release said. "He will engage in discussions with his Turkish counterparts on the repatriation and prosecution of foreign terrorist fighters, border security and curtailing terrorist travel, countering the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), combating terrorist finance, and global efforts to defeat al-Qaeda and ISIS [Islamic State]."
Sales said in May that the United States stands firm in the belief that all foreign terrorist fighters should be repatriated by their respective countries and subsequently charged with any crime they committed.
Sales also said the United States has repatriated four US citizens and charged them with terrorism-related crimes and is aware of media reports that there are additional foreign fighters captured in Syria who are US citizens.
In February, US President Donald Trump called on European states to take back over 800 Islamic State fighters who had been captured in Syria or risk having them released. No country has so far acted on Trump's request.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces has captured 5,000 Islamic State fighters and calls on their countries of origin to repatriate them, Bassam Saker, a representative of Syrian Democratic Council in the United States told Sputnik in May.
