EU snubs Isis repatriation call

European leaders have expressed scepticism about their willingness to cooperate with a request by United States President Donald Trump to bring home citizens who went to fight with Islamic State, underlining a security dilemma as the US military prepares to pull out of Syria following the collapse of the Isis ‘‘caliphate’’.

Many European nations have been content to leave citizens who may sympathise with Isis in Syria, gambling that their societies will be safer if radicalised citizens are kept far from their borders. But the Kurdish fighters who have kept many of the former caliphate residents under lock and key worry that with the US pullout, they may need to shift resources elsewhere, disbanding camps and allowing the residents to disburse.

Trump over the weekend threatened EU allies on Twitter that if they did not repatriate their citizens, the US would simply let them go, warning that Europe could face a surge in terrorist attacks as a result.

His tactic sparked anger at a gathering yesterday of EU foreign ministers, where leaders said they would make no plans under threat from Washington.

‘‘It is surely not as easy as imagined in America,’’ said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who said Germany was discussing the issue with France, Britain and other European countries.

The US request was ‘‘difficult to implement’’ right now, he said, because Germany could not yet guarantee that all returning fighters would be taken into custody immediately while cases were prepared against them.

Hundreds of captured Isis fighters have been imprisoned by Kurdish forces in the parts of northeast Syria that the Kurds control with US support. Thousands more women and children who lived in the caliphate but did not necessarily take part in the fighting are living under tight control inside Kurdish-run camps. Many of them are European citizens.

Among the challenges EU nations face is that it is often difficult to gather evidence of participation in Isis violence by their citizens, forcing prosecutors to try them on lesser charges that carry penalties of only a few years in prison.

France has started planning how to bring back its more than 100 fighters from the camps, along with women and children.

The political challenge extends beyond the adults who may still sympathise with the aims of Isis. Many started families while living in the caliphate, and Kurdish authorities estimate that at least 1300 children, many of them younger than 6 years old, are in the camps. European countries are debating whether bringing the children home without their parents would be a violation of the children’s rights.

– Washington Post

‘‘It is surely not as easy as imagined in America.’’ Heiko Maas, German Foreign Minister