ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iraq and Syria have agreed to form judicial committees to handle cases of Syrian nationals who were previously detained in northeast Syria’s al-Hol camp and were transferred to Iraq earlier in the year, an official from the Iraqi delegation said Thursday.

An Iraqi judiciary delegation, headed by Faiq Zidan, President of the Supreme Judicial Council, arrived in Syria’s capital Damascus on Thursday and was received by Syrian Justice Minister Mazhar al-Wais.

“The talks focused on the file of Syrian detainees received by Iraq from al-Hol prison and their legal status, for whom judicial investigations has been conducted in Iraq, and all judicial guarantees were provided to them in accordance with the law,” Judge Laith Jabr, head of the Iraqi Judicial Supervisory Commission, told state media.

In February, Iraq agreed to take in more than 5,700 ISIS prisoners from neighboring Syria in coordination with the US, after turmoil triggered by a January Syrian government offensive in Rojava (northeast Syria) raised fears that detention centers would be unable to maintain security.

“The two sides agreed to form joint judicial committees to hold continuous meetings to resolve the files related to their [Syrian detainees’] trials,” said Jabr.

Thursday’s meetings between the Iraqi and Syrian officials saw the two sides discuss avenues to broaden judicial and legal cooperation between the two countries, according to a statement from the Iraqi judiciary.

“The meetings witnessed the exchange of visions on enhancing judicial cooperation and developing the exchange of information and experiences, in addition to preparing to sign judicial memorandums of understanding between the two countries in the future,” Jabr added.

The al-Hol camp in Rojava’s Hasaka province housed tens of thousands of ISIS families and affiliates, mostly Syrian and Iraqi. The Iraqi judiciary said in February that the transferred detainees come from 61 different nationalities.

Syrian authorities have now emptied the camp, and the detainees have been transferred to al-Jadaa camp, which serves as a major government-run rehabilitation and integration center south of Mosul.

In early April, the Iraqi judiciary said it had finished the initial investigations of 1,000 detainees, with thousands more still awaiting due process and potential repatriation.