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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Around 400 French nationals traveled to Iraq and Syria to join the Islamic State group (ISIS). Now these fighters and their families captured on the battlefield face an uncertain future. France’s former ambassador to Syria says there are no easy solutions.
Speaking to Rudaw’s Washington Correspondent Roj Eli Zalla this week, French diplomat Michel Duclos, who was posted to Damascus from 2006 to 2009, said there are potentially three poor outcomes for the foreign fighters issue.
If French nationals are not repatriated or moved to a third party nation soon, they could potentially fall into the hands of the Syrian regime, Duclos warned. The government of Bashar al-Assad may then use these citizens as leverage to blackmail Paris.
From a humanitarian standpoint, the children of French ISIS members residing in Al-Hol camp and other holding facilities in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria live in an overcrowded and potentially dangerous environment. Unless they are repatriated soon, Duclos said, there is a risk of “poor French children dying in dark conditions.”
France, like several over western nations dragging their feet on repatriation, is concerned it will not be able to successfully prosecute returning fighters, lacking the necessary legal and judicial systems to prove their guilt, said Duclos.
“It’s a painful question of course. It is very much debated in France. There is no easy solution,” he said.
“That’s why we’re operating on what I believe is a case-by-case basis.”
Paris struck a deal with Baghdad to allow French citizens to stand trial in Iraqi courts. The agreement sparked a complex debate after 11 French nationals handed over to Baghdad by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were sentenced to death in early June.
“Sometimes we have to trust the Iraqi authorities to judge, to prosecute adult jihadists,” Duclos said.
No French intervention
The former ambassador left Damascus two years before the Arab Spring swept the region, igniting the ongoing Syrian civil war. However, Dulcos said elements of the discontent which provoked the uprising were visible even then.
Widening inequality, in particular, made the country ripe for the protests that ensued, he said.
However, France did not intervene militarily in its former mandate in 2011, or in 2013 when Assad was widely accused of using chemical weapons against civilians.
The French chose not to intervene because “the security apparatus in Syria was too powerful,” said Duclos. “But [France] tried to politically be on the side of the people.”
Turkey-YPG mediation
As Washington looks to exit northern Syria following the territorial defeat of ISIS in Baghouz in March, Paris seems willing to stay on in the region to protect the west’s Kurdish allies who did much of the ground fighting.
The People’s Protection Units (YPG) make up the backbone of the coalition-backed SDF. However, Syria’s northern neighbour Turkey views the group as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkey has fought a decades-long war with the group, which fights for great Kurdish political and cultural rights in Turkey.
Ankara attacked the YPG in the Kurdish-majority canton of Afrin, northwest Syria in January 2018, and has threatened to extend operations against the group eastward to force the group away from its southern border.
If US-led coalition forces withdraw, the YPG and the Kurdish-controlled administration of northern Syria would be left vulnerable. A US-Turkey “roadmap” to create a “safe-zone” along the border has made scant progress, and risks forcing the Kurds out of Kobane and Qamishli – both retaken from ISIS by Kurdish forces.
Meanwhile, Damascus also has an eye on Kurdish-held territory – home to some of Syria’s best farmland and many of its oilfields – as it grapples with rising food and fuel prices.
If France chooses to keep its forces in northern Syria, Paris could potentially help mediate on behalf of the Kurds, Duclos said.
“France can talk to Kurds on a long-term perspective,” he said.
“Kurds in Syria should not be perceived anymore as a threat by the Turkish state.”
Unless Turkey changes its perception of the People’s Democratic Party (PYD) – the YPG’s political arm – as a branch of the PKK, there can never be sustainable peace between Turkey and the Kurds of Syria, Duclos added.
“This is not in the interest of the Turks.”
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