American officials are hesitant to help Russia take custody of foreign fighters who joined the Islamic State in Syria, a top U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.
“My concern is what happens to those people, and particularly family members of those fighters, who get sent back to Russia, which is one of the limitations on our counterterrorism dialogue,” said Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan during his confirmation hearing to be ambassador to Russia.
The repatriation of foreign fighters is one of the most controversial topics within the international effort to defeat ISIS. Russia is widely perceived as having encouraged jihadists in Chechnya to go to Syria, swelling the so-called caliphate’s ranks by roughly 5,000, according to international estimates. But now Russian officials are echoing U.S. calls for the foreign fighters to be returned home.
“They are, in fact, in aggressive agreement with us on wanting their people back and putting pressure on other countries, particularly European countries, to take theirs,” Sullivan said.
Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, who has been sanctioned by the United States for human rights abuses, has focused on recovering the children of ISIS fighters. “We’ll solve this problem,” Kadyrov said in March. “We work every day and every hour. We won’t stop until we repatriate all those children.”
The repatriation issue overall leaves U.S. officials uneasy. “There are limits on how we can work with them because of their behavior,” Sullivan said.
[Read more: ‘It is not our policy’: In confirmation hearing, John Sullivan talks about Ukraine call]
