The delegation, headed by Bahramjan Alayov, Uzbekistan’s Ambassador to Kuwait, arrived at the headquarters of the AANES Foreign Relations Department in Qamishlo on 28 April, ANHA reported.
An AANES delegation led by Abdulkarim Omar, Co-Chair of the AANES Foreign Relations Commission welcomed the Uzbek delegation. The delegations have announced today that an agreement was signed between AANES and Uzbekistan for the repatriation of 92 Uzbek citizens.
“At Foreign Affairs Department of AANES, 24 women and 68 children of ISIS families were repatriated by handing them to official delegation of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan by signing an official document by both parties”, Omar wrote today on Twitter.
At Foreign Affairs Department of #AANES , 24 women & 68 children of ISIS families were repatriated by handing them to official delegation of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekista by signing an official document by both parties. pic.twitter.com/0yF7xLlWqa
— Dr Abdulkarim Omar (@abdulkarimomar1) April 30, 2021
Kurdish authorities have called for an international tribunal to bring ISIS suspects into its custody. This proposal has never been taken seriously by the international community.
Having not been officially recognised, AANES – where the majority of foreign ISIS members are detained – could not have prosecuted ISIS members. Although the Kurdish-led coalition has repeatedly appealed to countries to repatriate their nationals detained as ISIS members in AANES, most countries have refused to act.
Some commentators have suggested that, rather than internationally having to politically recognise AANES in order to proceed with such prosecutions in AANES, other alternative frameworks are being floated and supported by certain western governments that are still loath to officially politically recognise AANES because of the radical ‘bottom-up/grassroots multi-ethnic and multi-cultural based democratic and gender equality based styled governance’ that it promotes and represents (which are inspired by the writings of Abdullah Öcalan). Such governance is at odds with neoliberal capitalist policies and practices that many states and international banking institutions demand of states and governments today.
The Guardian has also reported today of an “Iraqi Kurdish officials plan to establish a special criminal court to prosecute accused Islamic State (ISIS) members in a move that could lead to senior members of the terror group being brought to Iraq” – rather than AANES, it would seem – “to face trial”.
The Guardian reports that “legislation introduced to the Kurdish parliament on Wednesday has raised the possibility that suspects detained in the years since the extremist group’s collapse could be transferred to a court in the northern city to Erbil to be prosecuted with international backing. While the court will initially deal with suspects accused of committing crimes inside Iraq, political leaders in Erbil have flagged the potential for it also to be used to try members detained across the Middle East and beyond. The legislation has been drafted with the support of the United Nations unit Unitad, which was set up to bring ISIS suspects to justice. However, the global body has not provided funding to establish the court”.
Rahila Gupta also wrote an article for Medya News regarding the issues surrounding the different types of justice in relation to ISIS and ISIS supporters in the Autonomous Administration of North East Syria (AANES) .
