ANKARA/JEDDAH: The visit of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman to Ankara for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit will be a key opportunity for bilateral talks on pressing issues in the region, especially Syria.
This is the view of Younes Demirar, Turkey’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, who told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper during a telephonic interview from Ankara on Sunday that the talks would also focus on terrorism, particularly Daesh.
He said Riyadh and Ankara share the same views on all regional issues, including on Syria and Yemen.
The summit would help the two sides produce a joint strategy on how to deal with challenges in these countries, particularly a political solution for Syria.
Meanwhile, Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Maher Onal received at his office here today the Minister of Culture and Information Adel Al-Toraifi to discuss cultural cooperation between the two countries, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
Al-Toraifi had also met with the Deputy Director General of Turkish Television and Broadcasting Corporation Zaki Chivichi and discussed areas of possible cooperation.
Following the meeting, Chivichi honored Al-Toraifi with a memorial shield to mark his visit.
The meeting was attended, on the Saudi side, by Abdulmalik Al-Shalhoub, acting president of the Television and Broadcasting Commission, and Abdulmohsen Elias, undersecretary of the ministry for external information.
Joint Saudi-Turkey action on Syria and Yemen planned
Joint Saudi-Turkey action on Syria and Yemen planned
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
- Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade
DAMASCUS: The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected Daesh group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in Al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.
He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed Al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”
The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
At its peak after the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of IS members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US
The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male IS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with IS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.
