{"id":41179,"date":"2019-10-13T04:23:42","date_gmt":"2019-10-13T04:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41179"},"modified":"2019-10-13T04:23:42","modified_gmt":"2019-10-13T04:23:42","slug":"turkey-steps-up-assault-on-syrian-kurds-defying-sanction-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41179","title":{"rendered":"Turkey steps up assault on Syrian Kurds defying sanction threats"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan:\u00a0Turkey\u2019s incursion into northeast Syria has given rise to fears that its military will commit another major atrocity against the war-torn country\u2019s Kurdish minority.<\/p>\n

\nThe UN has warned that 1.7 million people in northeast Syria are at risk as a result of Operation Peace Spring, and that up to 300,000 could soon be displaced, which would create a new humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n

\nTurkey has targeted urban centers with airstrikes and shelling, sending civilians fleeing en masse from their homes.<\/p>\n

\nAnkara has said its military operation is justified since the Syrian-Kurdish People\u2019s Protection Units (YPG) group has links to the Turkish Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK), which Ankara has been fighting since 1984 in a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people. The US and the EU have also designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.<\/p>\n

\nBut the YPG has not sent its forces to help the PKK in its operations in either southeast Turkey or Iraqi Kurdistan, instead focusing its efforts on the war against Daesh in Syria.<\/p>\n

\n

\nHIGH<\/span>LIGHTS<\/h4>\n
\n
\n

\n64,000 – People displaced in NE Syria<\/p>\n

\n300,000 – People likely to be displaced<\/p>\n

\n40,000 – Number of SDF fighters<\/p>\n

\n$300 million – Fall in US humanitarian aid to Syria from 2017 to 2019<\/p>\n

\n3.6 million – Syrian refugees in Turkey<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\nAfter the US military partnered with the YPG, which later formed the larger, multi-ethnic Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), against Daesh in 2014, Ankara said Washington was making a mistake by using \u201cone terror group to eliminate another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nNevertheless, the SDF proved the only capable and reliable ally the US had on the ground in its campaign against Daesh in Syria.<\/p>\n

\nToday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not concealed his goal for the future of northeast Syria.<\/p>\n

\nBesides insisting that the YPG must be completely neutralized, he has outlined his goal of resettling millions of Syrian refugees currently residing in Turkey in Syria\u2019s Kurdish-majority areas.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe intend to establish initially a peace corridor with a depth of 30 km and a length of 480 km, and enable the settlement of 2 million Syrians there with the support of the international community,\u201d Erdogan told the UN General Assembly on Sept. 24.<\/p>\n

\nHe intends to do this through a $27 billion project to build new cities and towns in Syrian Kurdistan that will be repopulated with Syrian refugees currently residing in Turkey.<\/p>\n

\nOssama Muhammad, a Syrian-Kurdish interpreter and translator, lamented the situation in a Facebook post, writing: \u201cNow families of those who were killed to defend the world, will keep behind alone to wait for new genocide and demographic change, the Kurds will never trust the humanity or the world or human rights again.\u201d Muhammad was referring to the immense sacrifices made by Kurds to stop Daesh in Syria.<\/p>\n

\nErdogan has also threatened to send millions of Syrian refugees to Europe if it opposes the settlement project or criticizes the military operation.<\/p>\n

\nThis would not be Turkey\u2019s first assault on the Syrian Kurds. In early 2018, it entered the northwestern enclave of Afrin with the help of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).<\/p>\n

\nAt the time, Erdogan openly spoke of returning Afrin to its \u201crightful owners.\u201d By this, he meant resettling non-Kurds in a Kurdish-majority region.<\/p>\n

\n

\nThis section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nBefore Turkey\u2019s invasion, Afrin stood out as an oasis of stability that had welcomed displaced Syrians regardless of ethnicity from across the war-weary country.<\/p>\n

\nAfter the invasion, which displaced well over 100,000 Kurdish civilians, the FSA rapidly sought to resettle displaced Syrians in the enclave, encouraging them to occupy vacated Kurdish homes, and even giving them Turkish-issued residency permits, in a clear bid to cement the demographic changes caused by the invasion. Many groups within the FSA have destroyed symbols of Afrin\u2019s Kurdish and Yazidi cultural heritage. The FSA has also committed human rights violations against Afrin\u2019s civilian population.<\/p>\n

\nAmnesty International said these violations included \u201carbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and confiscation of property and looting to which Turkey\u2019s armed forces have turned a blind eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe YPG has also been accused of human rights violations in northeast Syria. In August 2018, Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized the group for recruiting children into its ranks from displaced-persons camps. The SDF promptly issued a decree to end this practice, which was welcomed by HRW.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\n\"\"
\nThe Syrian Democratic Forces proved the only reliable ally the US had in the fight against Daesh in Syria. (Shutterstock)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\nIn 2015, Amnesty International reported that the YPG destroyed entire villages that it had captured from Daesh.<\/p>\n

\nThe report said there was no justification or military grounds for destroying these Arab villages.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nAmnesty suspected that the YPG was motivated by a desire to collectively punish civilians from villages previously occupied by Daesh, or to settle land disputes with Arabs going back decades.<\/p>\n

\nKurds fear that Turkey will carry out a large-scale campaign of ethnic cleansing in its current operation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThey feel betrayed by US President Donald Trump for countenancing the Turkish invasion, because the SDF was the predominant ground force in Syria that destroyed Daesh\u2019s \u201ccaliphate.\u201d The SDF says it sacrificed approximately 11,000 men and women in that fight.<\/p>\n

\nMohammed Salih, a Kurdish journalist and doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Annenberg School for Communication, sees the latest Turkish foray into Syria as Erdogan\u2019s \u201cfinal solution of the Kurds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nSalih told Arab News: \u201cErdogan and his Syrian jihadi proxies are planning and interested in nothing less than ethnic cleansing of not only the Kurdish people in northeast Syria, but based on what we\u2019ve seen in Afrin, of Christian and Yazidi populations there as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHe said: \u201cThis isn\u2019t a matter of conjecture and speculation. The ongoing example of Afrin supports these fears without a shred of doubt.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cTurkish government officials have unequivocally made clear that they plan to resettle \u2026 non-Kurdish Syrian refugees in the narrow strip of land populated by the Kurds.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe world needs to act and stop Erdogan\u2019s genocidal designs.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan:\u00a0Turkey\u2019s incursion into northeast Syria has given rise to fears that its military will commit another major atrocity against the war-torn country\u2019s Kurdish minority. The UN has warned that 1.7 million people in northeast Syria are at risk as a result of Operation Peace Spring, and that up to 300,000 could soon be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}