Erdogan
Declares Victory As Turkish Flag Flies Over Afrin; Reports Of Ethnic
Cleansing
18 March, 2018
After a bloody, two month cross-border campaign of Turkish forces to dislodge Kurdish YPG "terrorists" from the Syrian city of Afrin, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared complete victory on Sunday as Turkish and allied FSA flags have been raised for the first time over Afrin's city centre.
Kurdish
YPG forces (or "People's Protection Units") were widely
reported to have withdrawn before pro-Turkish forces entered the city
before dawn on Sunday, allowing invading forces to secure the city
while facing no resistance. In a televised speech Erdogan claimed to
have "saved" the city through the "heroic"
actions of his military while also framing the operation which took
place entirely on Syrian soil as humanitarian in nature. He said,
"This
operation has shown the whole world that Turkey sides with the
oppressed,"
as reported by Rudaw.
Kurdish
authorities of Afrin canton, for the their part, condemned
Russia for allowing Turkey to use airspace to dislodge Kurdish
protection units.
At a Kurdish press conference, an
Afrin canton official leveled the charge that "Russia
actively participated in opening airspace for Turkey to 'exterminate
our people with all kinds of weapons and sacrificed our people for
their interests in Syria, and under international silence, of the
coalition, and EU'". The spokesperson added that, "We
decided to remove civilians from the city to avoid a more terrible
humanitarian catastrophe."
Units
of the Free Syrian Army, which are backed by Turkish armed forces,
took control of the center of Afrin this morning at 8.30am (0530
GMT),” Erdogan said in a speech early Sunday.
Erdogan
also appears to have taunted the retreating Kurdish forces, saying
that a "large number" of Kurdish fighters had "fled
with their tails between their legs," and added that Turkish
special forces have been deployed in the city, with demining
operations also underway. "Now
the Turkish flag will fly over there! The flag of the Free Syrian
Army will fly over there!" said
Erdogan.
He
gave the address at a ceremony marking the battle to open the
Dardanelles during the first world war, and the
neo-Ottoman aspirations of which Erdogan has long been accused of
peppered the speech throughout,
including reference to the Ottoman Turkish defense of Gallipoli
during World War I. "We are fighting the same way we did in
Canakkale," he said, using the Turkish name for what was the
only major historic Ottoman victory of WWI. "They thought that
Turkey is not as strong as it was in Canakkale."
In
spite of Erdogan's high-minded humanitarian rhetoric which has been
consistent throughout Turkey's 'Operation Olive Branch', significant
evidence has mounted that pro-Turkish forces are actually engaged in
an ethnic cleansing campaign targeting northern Syria's large Kurdish
population. In the last three days alone, according to numbers
published in The Guardian, over
200,000 civilians have fled the Kurdish-majority city with many
dozens killed.
In
all throughout two months of primarily Turkish shelling and aerial
bombardment of the Afrin area, there have been close to 300
documented civilian deaths, but the number is likely far higher.
Prior to this weekend's most intense phase of fighting for control of
Afrin, the Syrian opposition site Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
(SOHR) estimated that at least 245 civilians, including
41 children, have been killed,
figures which the
United Nations called "deeply alarming" -
but stopped short of condemning Turkish actions.
During
a Sunday press conference, Kurdish spokespersons for Afrin canton
called on the UN Security Council to pressure Turkey "to
stop cultural and political genocide against our society and
to ensure return of 'our people to their places with international
guarantee." At the close of the fighting, the
Kurdish statement indicates that over 500 civilians were killed, with
1030 civilians injured, and 820 Kurdish fighters killed.
Over
the weekend of intense fighting, Turkish forces struck cars packed
with fleeing Kurdish civilians and stood accused of targeting Afrin's
lone functioning hospital, according to the BBC.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has also issued
reports detailing
attacks on civilian homes, buildings, and infrastructure throughout
the campaign. And also according to pro-rebel SOHR, over 400
pro-Turkish forces died since January 20.
Meanwhile,
Turkey's president had previously openly
voiced a goal of radical demographic shift in northwest Syria based
on claimed ethnic statistics as his army invades foreign soil. Syrian
Kurdish media has consistently accused Turkey of launching the
Operation Olive Branch campaign out of a desire
to ethnically cleansethe
Turkish border region of its historically Kurdish identity.
Kurdish
spokesmen have also charged Turkey with employing current and former
ISIS terrorists and other jihadists in order to do the Turkish
state's dirty work
ISIS in #Afrîn
Indeed Erdogan had
previously vowed "to
give Afrin back to its real owners" while
claiming that "55% of Afrin is composed of Arabs with %35 of
Kurds coming there later on". This as invading
Turkish-backed militias (FSA) have been filmed shouting chants
related to the ethnic cleansing of
Kurds,
according to Middle East analyst Hassan
Hassan,
as well a desire to force all the region's inhabitants to convert to
Sunni Islam.
Currently,
it appears an
initiative to erase all visible monuments of Kurdish presence and
history is already underway:
pro-Turkish FSA forces have published a photo which shows them
tearing down a statue of a blacksmith named Kawa, an important figure
in Kurdish legend. According to Reuters,
the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces condemned the removal
of the statue as the "first
blatant violation of Kurdish people's culture and history since the
takeover of Afrin."
Newroz
symbol in #Afrin
was destroyed by Turkish-backed rebels: Kawa statue (unveiled in
March 2017) destroyed just a few days before the Kurdish New Year
Celebrations (Newroz) that will take place on 21 March h/t
@peshmerge
Newroz symbol in #Afrin was destroyed by Turkish-backed rebels: Kawa statue (unveiled in March 2017) destroyed just a few days before the Kurdish New Year Celebrations (Newroz) that will take place on 21 March h/t @peshmerge
On
Sunday afternoon, a Kurdish official told The
Washington Post that
Syrian Kurds have
now entered "a new phase" of guerrilla warfare after
Turkish troops secured Afrin. A full Kurdish statement was given at a
press conference and reads
as follows: "we
would like to declare that our
war against the Turkish occupation and the Takfiri forces called the
Free Army has entered a new stage,
the transition from direct confrontation war to hit-and-run tactics."
Meanwhile,
Washington continues to soft pedal the significance of this weekend's
events, saying merely citing "fear
the Afrin offensive may divert attention from the anti-IS
battle" according
to the
Post.
The
Syrian government has again condemned the Turkish violation of Syrian
sovereignty and will continue plead its case before the UN. Some
analysts have accused the Kurdish YPG of purposefully
allowing pro-Turkish forces to occupy Afrininstead
of allowing pro-Syrian government factions to defend the town.
Breaking
News: Turkish Forces Capture North Side of Afrin
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