Turkey's ethnic cleansing in Syria

Historically, Turkish rulers have been responsible for some of the biggest forcible ethnic displacements.

Turkey’s latest military incursion into northern Syria which it says is aimed at reining in Kurdish separatists will speed up the return of Syrian refugees to their homes, Turkish officials say. But Kurds are fearful Ankara plans to use the returnees to displace them and engineer a population shift.

Kurdish political activists have been mounting a Twitter and social media campaign highlighting the danger, claiming "ethnic cleansing" is one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s key war aims and crimes against humanity.

Traditionally Afrin has been seen as Kurdish territory, with a peppering of other minorities, including Turkmens, Alawite Kurds, Yazidi Kurds and with some Armenians and Circassians, say analysts.

Former U.S. officials have also expressed alarm. Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser and currently an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, says, “What Turkey seeks to do in Afrin is not eradicate terrorism, but rather to engage in ethnic cleansing.”

Ethnic cleansing of Kurds continues in areas of northeast and northwest Syria controlled by Turkey and their affiliated militias.

Turkey’s presence in Northern Syria has facilitated the persistent displacement and ongoing persecution of Kurds in the area, heaping further abuse on a community that has suffered unimaginably over the last decade.

Experts referred to violations committed against the minority in the Turkish-occupied regions of the country in Afrin which was invaded in 2018 and Sere Kaniye which was invaded in October 2019, as a “gradual ethnic cleansing.”

The new US administration led by president Biden, a strong advocate of human rights, should sanction Turkey in order to pressure them to control their proxy militias who continue the genocide of Kurds and to force withdrawal of Turkish-backed groups from northern Syria.

Turkey must be called out for supporting groups that may become the nucleus for the next generation of terrorism in Syria.