Foreign Fighters from Central Asia: Between Renunciation and Repatriation

Central Asia represents the third biggest source of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria. Facing the need to deal with returnees - foreign fighters and their associates, the Central Asian states transitioned from taking a peremptory position of no return and citizenship deprivation for those who travelled to the war zones to providing an active assistance in bringing them back, domestically prosecuting or rehabilitating them. This commentary outlines adopted polices and addressing dilemma of hard and soft approaches to this matter.