Setting Free Arrested Syrian Terrorists by US Would Constitute a Crime - Lavrov

Previously, US President Donald Trump urged European countries to take back their citizens who have been captured in Syria after fighting in the ranks of the Daesh* terror group.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has criticised US threats to set jihadists in Syria free, noting that European countries, "whose citizens these bandits are", are refusing to take them back.

"So far, double standards are being manifested in that our Western colleagues, mainly in Europe, but also in other parts of the world, do not want to take back foreign terrorists captured by the Americans and Kurds on the eastern bank of the Euphrates", he said at a press conference in Moscow.

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"There is some dispute, Americans are threatening to set them free them, which would be a terrible crime, I think", the minister stressed.

 According to him, the US has even been trying to convince the Iraqi government to take the Daesh fighters.

The statement comes after the White House claimed that over a thousand jihadists captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) needed to be returned to Europe to face trial. Responding to the demand, Denmark refused to take the militants back. Germany, meanwhile, has said that consular access for the suspects is a precondition for their return to the country, noting there is no possibility to guarantee this in Syria due to the ongoing military conflict.

* Daesh (ISIL/ISIS/IS/Islamic State) is a terrorist organisation banned in Russia