Return Of Russian Children From Iraq May Take Time Due To Paperwork - Iraqi Ambassador

The return of Russian children born to parents fighting for the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia) from Iraq might "take a while" due to need to do the paperwork to confirm their nationality, Iraqi Ambassador to Russia Haidar Mansour Hadi told Sputnik on Thursday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th February, 2019) The return of Russian children born to parents fighting for the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia) from Iraq might "take a while" due to need to do the paperwork to confirm their nationality, Iraqi Ambassador to Russia Haidar Mansour Hadi told Sputnik on Thursday.

"I was talking to the Russian officials and now we are working, the Russian embassy is working with the Iraqi authorities. The problem now it that some of the children were born outside Russia. They were born in Iraq, so we need to work on their paperwork, verify their papers, verify their Russian origin, so that process might take a while," Hadi said on the sidelines of the Russian Investment Forum.

The ambassador noted that the Iraqi side was doing everything possible to facilitate the return of the children as soon as possible.

"So once we establish all the paperwork, then the group will be returned ... We are trying to get them as soon as possible. From our side, the Iraqi side, we are facilitating the process to the maximum and we are working very, very fast on that so hopefully it will be very soon," he noted.

The problem of Russian children in Iraq first emerged in 2017 after a story released by RT that filmed a Baghdad orphanage housing Russian children whose parents smuggled them from Russia and were later killed in fighting after joining the IS. On Sunday, an aircraft of the Russian Emergencies Ministry brought to Moscow 27 Russian children, who had long remained in Iraqi prisons with their mothers.