Solardarity

Turkey has been taking action against the Kurdish population for decades. Ankara regards Kurdish autonomy as a threat. But it is not only within the country that the Turkish state is taking action against Kurds. Turkish drone and airstrikes are also repeatedly killing Kurdish, Arab, Yedidi and Christian people in North and East Syria. 2023 turkish airstrikes have destroyed civilian infrastructure and large parts of the energy supply, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electricity and the means to heat or cook. NATO member Turkey receives support from the Western military alliance. Arms exports from Germany, France, Sweden, Spain and Denmark, as well as cooperation with the European arms manufacturer Airbus, make this clear. German and European technology is used in Turkey’s deadly drones.
The Turkish army has already occupied large parts of North Syria in a total of three ground offensives in recent years. A renewed invasion cannot be ruled out – especially as the world is distracted by the war in Ukraine and the conflict in Israel and Palestine. Erdogan has repeatedly declared that he wants to „cleanse“ North Syria of „terrorists“. For Ankara, this term applies to the entire self-administration. It is to make way for a Turkish-controlled „protection zone“ on the Turkish-Syrian border.
What this means in concrete terms for the people can be seen in Turkish-occupied Afrin. Before the invasion, over 90 percent of the region’s population was Kurdish, but now only 22 percent are. Pro-Turkish Islamists plunder, kidnap, murder and rape with almost complete impunity. Turkey’s war in North and East Syria is therefore a war against the people living there. But it is also a war against a political idea. Self-administration as a democratic alternative to patriarchy and the nation state is to be destroyed.