Ardern seeks dialogue on alleged terrorists
AUCKLAND: The New Zealand woman detained in Turkey as a terrorist spoke of how she had a lastminute change of mind about going to Syria but was bundled into a van and driven across the border.
It comes as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has spoken of how the woman is not alone and that she wants to open dialogue with Australia to handle each case of terrorlinked dual nationality individually.
Ms Ardern dialled down the angry rhetoric aimed at her Australian counterpart Scott Morrison on Tuesday when she revealed being wrongfooted on the fate of Suhayra Aden, who was detained in Turkey this week.
While Ms Ardern had spoken to Mr Morrison of the case a few years ago, she was expecting further discussions.
Instead, Mr Morrison cancelled the Melbourne woman’s Australian passport, meaning Ms Aden was left with just her New Zealand nationality, despite not having lived here for
20 years.
She left
New Zealand for Australia with her parents at age 6 about 2001, and grew up in Australia before leaving by herself for Turkey with the intent of going into Syria and linking with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
ABC investigative journalist Dylan Welch described how he met Aden in the AlHawl refugee camp in 2019.
Mr Welch and colleague Suzanne Drudge had travelled to Syria to interview several Australian women who had arrived in the camp after Islamic State disintegrated.
He encountered Aden with her two surviving children.
‘‘She was obviously terrified. I could see her hands shaking. She explained how worried she was, not only for herself but mainly for the kids.
‘‘She was terrified she was going to lose the baby.’’
Mr Welch said Ms Aden wanted to leave Syria and she was clear about where she hoped to go.
‘‘I’m pretty sure she said to us she just wanted to come home and by that, she meant Australia.’’
Mr Welch said Ms Aden had spoken of travelling to Turkey with the intent of going to Syria but changing her mind at the last minute.
However, according to Ms Aden, she was with a group bound for the wartorn country and was unable to escape from them.
She was kept in a van and driven across the border.
‘‘Next thing she knew, she was in Syria.’’
The transtasman row in which Ms Ardern delivered a broadside to Mr Morrison cooled yesterday, and her tone was more conciliatory after a phone conversation between the pair.
She confirmed there was the possibility of other cases emerging similar to Ms Aden’s, and why that underscored the need for New Zealand and Australia to work together.
‘‘That was one of the reasons we needed to address this as close partners and friends because rather than just taking an arbitrary view on all of those cases we should have looked at all of those cases and say ‘who is responsible for whom?’ ’’
She said the question of how to deal with Ms Aden if she returned to New Zealand was still some way from needing to be resolved.
‘‘This is still an individual who is at the Turkish border,’’ Ms Ardern said.
It was unknown whether she would face charges there, or if New Zealand was her ultimate destination.