Turkish occupation is the source of problems in Syria

Rojava, Northern and Eastern Syria has been governing itself for more than ten years. And in a democratic way that has no other example in the Middle East. Is it in the interest of the peoples to support this or to destroy it?

Turkey continues its threats and attacks against Rojava, Northern and Eastern Syria. These attacks lead to multiple destruction and disasters. Turkey is carrying out ethnic cleansing in areas such as Afrin, directly targeting the existence of the Kurdish people. In order to make this permanent and to prevent the Kurdish people from returning to their lands, they confiscate all their assets. The Kurds are replaced by those they recruit from here and there, their assets are plundered and their properties are transferred to them. With continuous attacks, they also oppress the regions they cannot occupy, burn the people’s crops, make them unable to work and shelter. As a result, the people are condemned to hunger and forced to migrate.

Turkey's actions in South Kurdistan are no different. It has built military bases in a wide area. It carries out intensive air and land attacks to establish bases. Hundreds of villages have been evacuated. Forested areas and lands are constantly bombarded, and fires destroy the vegetation every year. Trees are cut down and forests are destroyed. In the 1990s, nearly four thousand villages and hamlets in North Kurdistan were burnt and emptied, and millions of people were displaced. In essence, the Turkish state wants to massacre and eliminate the Kurdish people. To this end, it has been pursuing assimilation as an infallible state policy for a hundred years, targeting the cultural existence of the Kurdish people.

Efforts are being made to mobilise the whole world against the Kurdish people. The Erdoğan administration has mobilised all states and powers from China to Russia, from the USA and Europe to the Middle East to make them partners in its genocide of the Kurds. Turkey especially wants to carry out joint operations with Iran and Iraq. Now it is trying to include the administration of Syria, the destruction of which it has contributed to and a significant part of which it has occupied. After the autonomous administration put the municipal elections on the agenda, it increased its attacks and threats. Syria cannot prevent these elections, so Turkey says, ‘let me prevent them’.

The Turkish state explains all its attacks and threats based on the PKK. It has no other justification and argument left. It is, however, clear that the problem is not the PKK, but the existence of Kurds. However, Kurdish hostility makes their work difficult in the international arena. In order to manipulate domestic and foreign public opinion and cover up the crime of genocide, it hides behind the justifications of terrorism and the PKK. The PKK did not create the Kurdish question. There is a Kurdish question created by the Turkish state through denial and extermination. Even before the PKK, the Turkish state was already denying the existence of the Kurds, massacring and exiling them. The PKK was founded to put an end to this and to defend the existence of the Kurds. Now, Turkey wants to justify and legitimise these policies and practices under the cover of fighting the PKK.

Turkey says, "We will never allow elections or the establishment of a terrorist state right under our noses, on our southern borders". They cry that "There are no elections, but a legitimisation of the terrorist organization”. They want to lull the Turkish people with the propaganda that Turkey will be divided and to make them partners in their war policy. In Turkey, they have turned all circles from right to left into defenders of this bloody and denial-based policy. One hundred years of propaganda and the mentality of one nation and one state have not been overcome. This mentality is constantly dragging Turkey into troubles and conflicts. The country's economic resources and the search for democratisation are being consumed and crippled.

Rojava, Northern and Eastern Syria has been governing itself for more than ten years. And in a democratic way that has no other example in the Middle East. Is it in the interest of the peoples to support this or to destroy it? Why should people going to the polls be defined as terrorism? There is no such thing in the world. But the racist mind that wants to erase the Kurdish people from history imposes even this occasion on the Kurds and the people of the region as a reason for attack and war. It forces the USA and other powers to take a stance against this. Erdoğan sends his foreign minister to Putin to prevent this. However, if municipal elections took place, neither Turkey nor Syria would collapse. On the contrary, the region would become more normalised. Democratic options would come to the fore and Syria's problems would be resolved through dialogue and its unity would become easier to achieve.

Kurds and the peoples they live with do not see their future outside Syria. They do not have such a quest. They have no calculations other than protecting the regions they liberated from ISIS and governing themselves. On the contrary, they are trying to talk with the Damascus government and solve their problems. It is Turkey itself that sabotaged this solution and established and financed the SNA and the Syrian interim government against the Syrian army. Turkey, who has de facto divided and occupied Syria, continues to torpedo the solution and peace.


Source: Ronahi Newspaper