Japan to send rescue teams to Turkiye following big quake

Rescuers search for survivors under the rubble following an earthquake in Diyarbakir, Turkey February 6, 2023. (Reuters)
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Updated 07 February 2023
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Japan to send rescue teams to Turkiye following big quake

  • The rescue team advance party was scheduled to leave for the site on Monday evening

TOKYO: The Japanese government on Monday decided to dispatch the Japan Disaster Relief Team/ Rescue Team to conduct search-and-rescue operations for missing persons in response to a request from the Turkish government following the devastating earthquakes there.

The rescue team advance party was scheduled to leave for the site on Monday evening.

Based on the request of the Turkish government, and in consideration of the humanitarian perspective and friendly relations with Turkiye, Japan decided to provide emergency humanitarian assistance.

At around 4:17 a.m. local time on Monday, an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 occurred in the southeastern part of Turkiye. Other large quakes followed soon after.

Turkiye’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency has said that the earthquakes in the south of the country have killed 912 people and injured about 5,385 so far. The figures are expected to rise significantly.

The Japanese statement didn’t mention Syria and who was also hit hard and suffered considerable damage by this earthquake.


Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe

Updated 24 January 2026
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Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe

RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.

Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.