Brexit talks inching closer to a deal ahead of summit In Iraq, concern that Syria chaos would bring back IS

Brussels — The European Union and Britain inched ever closer to a Brexit deal, with the leaders of France and Germany saying they expected an agreement could be sealed at today’s EU summit.

Positive vibes radiated from French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a joint news conference Wednesday in Toulouse, France, where Merkel said that negotiations were “in the final stretch.”

Macron added that “I want to believe that a deal is being finalized and that we can approve it” today, when EU leaders are due to meet British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Brussels.

Differences between the two sides remained but were narrowing to some technical and complicated customs and value-added tax issues, officials said. Negotiating teams were working into the night at EU headquarters to solve them.

“Good progress, and work is ongoing,” EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier told reporters Wednesday evening.

Johnson, meanwhile, likened Brexit to climbing Mount Everest, saying the summit was in sight, though still shrouded in cloud.

And the EU Parliament’s chief Brexit official, Guy Verhofstadt, said Johnson had already moved mountains over the past days, seeking compromise where once he had been unbending.

“Before, the proposals of Mr. Johnson were absolutely unacceptable,” Verhofstadt said. “There has been a fundamental shift, that is clear.”

But Brexit negotiations have been here before — seemingly closing in on a deal that is dashed at the last moment. But with Britain’s Oct. 31 departure date looming and just hours to go before the EU leaders’ summit, hopes were increasingly turning toward getting a broad political commitment, with the full legal details to be hammered out later. That could mean another EU summit on Brexit before the end of the month.

Negotiators were locked inside EU headquarters with few details leaking out.

Rabiaa, Iraq — Iraq’s defense minister on Wednesday expressed concerns that the Islamic State group could take advantage of Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria to destabilize Iraq, saying that a number of militants have been able to escape detention in Syria amid the chaos and cross into Iraq.

Speaking to a group of journalists touring the Iraq-Syria border with him, Najah al-Shammari urged the Iraqi government to work quickly on sealing the border.

“The Iraqi government should act quickly to close illegal crossings between Iraq and Syria,” al-Shammari said. He did not elaborate or say how many IS members have crossed into Iraq. He said that some of them are still at large while others have been detained.

There have been concerns in Iraq that the Turkish military operation against Kurdish fighters in neighboring Syria might lead to the escape of Islamic State group prisoners from detention centers run by Syrian Kurdish fighters. Some 10,000 IS members are being held in prisons across territory in northern Syria. Over the weekend, 780 supporters fled from a camp for the displaced in the town of Ein Issa.

On Wednesday, an official with an organization that assesses terror threats in Belgium told a parliamentary committee that at least two Belgian militants fled their detention center in Syria.

Paul Van Tigcheld, head of Belgium’s threat analysis organ, OCAD, told the committee Wednesday: “We know about five (foreign terrorist fighters), three women and two men, who were in camps or prisons, and who are no longer there.”

Later on Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said foreign fighters from the Islamic State group who might flee Syrian detention centers and go to Iraq should be arrested and sent to trial there.

Macron, speaking in the southern French city of Toulouse, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will travel today to Iraq to speak with local authorities about French IS detainees.

Macron said “it’s too soon” to say if some members of IS may seek to reach the European Union and France.