Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria announced Monday they have reached an agreement with the transitional government in Damascus to evacuate Syrian citizens from a sprawling camp in the desert that houses tens of thousands of people with alleged ties to the militant Islamic State group.
Sheikhmous Ahmed, an official in the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast, said an agreement was reached on a “joint mechanism” for returning the families from al-Hol camp after a meeting among local authorities, representatives of the central government in Damascus and a delegation from the U.S.-led international coalition fighting IS.
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Ahmed denied reports that administration of the camp will be handed over to Damascus in the near future, saying “there was no discussion in this regard with the visiting delegation or with the Damascus government."
Human rights groups for years have cited poor living conditions and pervasive violence in the camp, which houses about 37,000 people, mostly wives and children of IS fighters as well as supporters of the militant group. They also include Iraqis as well as nationals of Western countries who traveled to join IS.
The U.S. military has been pushing for years for countries that have citizens at al-Hol and the smaller, separate Roj Camp to repatriate them. Iraq has taken back increasing numbers of citizens in recent years, but many other countries have remained reluctant.
As for Syrians housed in the camp, a mechanism has been in place for several years to return those who want to go back to their communities in the Kurdish-controlled areas, where centers have been opened to reintegrate them.
Before now, however, there had not been an agreement with the government in Damascus to return them to areas under the central government’s control.
The new agreement comes amid attempts to increase the cooperation between Kurdish authorities and the new leaders in Damascus after former President Bashar Assad was unseated in a rebel offensive in December.
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Under a deal signed in March between Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the SDF is to be merged into the new government armed forces. All border crossings with Iraq and Turkey and airports and oil fields in the northeast are to come under the central government’s control.
Prisons where about 9,000 suspected members of the Islamic State group are held are also expected to come under central government control.
The deal marked a major step toward unifying the disparate factions that had carved up Syria into de facto mini-states during its civil war that began in 2011 after the brutal crackdown by Assad's government on massive anti-government protests.
However, implementation has been slow. Washington has been pushing for its enactment and, in particular, for Damascus to take over management of the prisons in northeast Syria.