06/10/2021

An appeal to Joe Biden

US President should demand Erdogan to respect human rights (Press Release)

Next week, US President Joseph Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet at the NATO Summit in Brussels. The Society for Threatened Peoples has sent an appeal to the White House to ask President Biden to advocate for an end to the Turkish aggression against the members of the Kurdish, Christian, and Alevi minorities. The Turkish army and their Islamist allies have already driven hundreds of thousands of people out of their settlement areas in northern Syria, and the Turkish air force is still attacking Kurdish villages in Iraq.

"The Turkish attacks against ethnic and religious minorities in Syria and Iraq are taking place under the eyes of both the Russian army and the US military," criticized Dr. Kamal Sido, the STP's Middle East Consultant. "To our knowledge, the scenario that both Russia and the united Stets are tacitly tolerating a military campaign against an ethnic group is absolutely unique.

"Thus, it is now up to President Biden to act on the Turkish President and demand him to put an end to the violence. "Erdogan has almost achieved his goal of changing the demographic structure of northern Syria. The once multi-ethnic and multi-religious region is now almost entirely inhabited by Sunni Arabs who were resettled by Erdogan." Sido added. "This is a serious human rights violation and a crime against humanity. The western world and the United States must not accept that." Instead, it would be important to demand Turkey to allow the Kurds, Yazidis, Christians, and Alevis to return – under international civilian observation.

According to the STP's sources and other expert opinions, about 1.5 million people – Kurds, Yazidis, and Christians – are currently on the run from the civil war, from attacks by IS fighters and the Turkish military intervention: around 350,000 people from Afrin in north-western Syria, about 300,000 from Ras al-Ain and its surroundings, and about 350,000 from other regions in Syria. Many of them were forced to flee during the first years of the war.