The Syrian government has strongly condemned the visit of a French Foreign Ministry delegation to Kurdish-controlled areas in northeast Syria.
“Syria condemns in the strongest terms the illegitimate entry of a delegation from French Foreign Ministry into Syrian territory,” a Foreign Ministry statement said Tuesday.
Last week, a French delegation headed by Stephane Romatet visited the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) and met Kurdish leaders.
The visit was mainly related to the issue of returning the families of ISIS militants carrying the French nationality.
A total of 169 children and 57 women have been brought back to France since ISIS lost all its territory in 2019.
The delegation also discussed the mechanism of supporting local communities in northeastern Syria and the security conditions in the camps that house thousands of local and foreign ISIS families, as well as the heavy burden borne by the local administrations.
A Syrian Foreign Ministry source said Tuesday that the visit of the French delegation is a flagrant violation of the most basic international laws and norms.
It added that the delegation’s meeting with the separatist organizations, in reference to the Kurdish Autonomous Administration and the Syrian Democratic Forces, “constitutes a flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and reveals the destructive role and the extreme French hostility to Syria.”
The visit also reveals “France’s full partnership in aggression against Syria through its support for terrorist groups and separatist militias,” the source said.
It added that Syria reminds the French government that “the fight against terrorism is to be in cooperation with the Syrian state that faced this terrorism, but not in cooperation with the separatist organizations that formed a cover for the French government and are united by one goal, which is hostility to Syria and its people, and violation of its sovereignty and undermining its territorial integrity.”
The source concluded by saying that Syria calls on the international community to condemn the “reckless acts” of the French government and demands it to respect international legitimacy and laws.
Early this month, France repatriated 10 women and 25 children on the fourth and last state-organized flight, which followed international pressure on countries to take back their nationals who travelled to territory controlled by ISIS from 2014-2019.
On July 4, the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office said that of the 10 women aged 23 to 40, seven have been arrested over pending warrants. The others were to appear before an investigating judge.
The prosecutor said there is a 17-year-old girl among the minors for whom there was a search warrant.
Thousands of people, including ISIS suspects and family members from 60 countries, are currently detained in the camps of a-Hol and Roj, run by Kurds in northeast Syria, and in Iraqi prisons.
The French women had voluntarily gone to territories across Syria and Iraq then controlled by ISIS.
They were captured when the group was ousted from its self-declared “caliphate” in 2019.
In France, any adult who went to the Iraq-Syria zone and remained there is subject to legal proceedings.
A total of 16 women and 35 children were brought back to France during the first repatriation operation a year ago, followed in October by the return of 15 women and 40 children, AFP had reported.
