Northern Syria has been occupied for four years (October 9)

Four years after NATO member Turkey attacked Northern Syria on October 9, 2019 – an internationally wrongful act – the German Federal Government is still ignoring the fate of the Kurds and other minority groups in Northern Syria. The change of government to the so-called “traffic light coalition” has not led to any changes in this regard: “The German Federal Government is still unwaveringly on the side of the aggressor – politically, diplomatically, and financially,” criticized Dr. Kamal Sido, Middle East Correspondent of the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP). “This attitude is damaging the reputation of the Federal Republic of Germany, of NATO, and the West altogether. It benefits authoritarian states such as Russia or China, which are trying to draw the states of the global south to their side, and which reject universal human rights.”

During and after the Turkish invasion – which was called “Source of Peace” – Turkish troops and their allied Islamist mercenaries occupied the SDF-controlled region around Serekaniye (Ras al Ain) and Tall Abyad, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. They committed countless war crimes and human rights violations against the civilian population. “Of the 50,000 Kurdish people in the city of Ras al Ain, less than 100 stayed there, and only a few of them are Yazidis. Further, there are only two Armenians and 5 to 10 Aramaeans left – all of them elderly people,” Sido reported. “Turkey has repeatedly used the Alok waterworks in Ras al Ain, which provide drinking water for approximately 1.5 million people in northeastern Syria, as a weapon: The multi-ethnic and multi-religious city of Hasakeh is especially affected by frequent interruptions in the water supply.”

The Turkish invasion “Source of Peace” was only possible because the United States under Donald Trump had suddenly withdrawn all troops from the region, giving NATO-partner Turkey a go-ahead for the attacks. “The experiences from Nagorno Karabach show that the minority groups of the Kurds and the Armenians cannot rely on NATO,” Sido summarized. “Germany and NATO only talk of democracy and human rights if it fits their geopolitical interests. During my visit to Kurdistan, Iraq, and Syria in April this year, I heard this sentence from many members of the minority groups living there – again and again.”

On the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the Turkish attacks, a delegation of Syrian Kurds will visit the main office of the STP in Göttingen. Due to the Turkish attacks, people were driven out of Afrin in 2018 and out of Ras al Ain in 2019.