Don’t give in to the pressure from Turkey – do not exclude the Kurds from the Syria-conference!

On Wednesday, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) in Göttingen sent an urgent appeal to the Foreign Ministers of the United States and Russia to insist that Kurdish representatives must be able to take part in the international peace conference on Syria which will take place in Switzerland next Wednesday (January 22).

"Sustainable peace in Syria can only be achieved if the interests of all population groups in Syria are respected," says the letter by Tilman Zülch, the Secretary General of the STP. "Together, the Kurds and the Christian Assyrian-Aramaeans make up about 20 percent of the population. They are important partners for a pacification and democratization of the country, which is shaken by the civil war. Radical Islamists continue to attack Kurdish settlements along the Syrian-Turkish border, so the U.S. and Russia must show support for the Kurdish people and make sure that they are able to participate in the Geneva Conference." The Turkish government insists that the "Kurdish Supreme Committee" cannot be included as an independent and autonomous negotiating partner.

Despite the ongoing military disaster and the political problems in Syria, the Kurds and their Christian neighbors (who were oppressed and persecuted under the Assad regime for decades) largely managed to stay out of the bloody civil war which was also a religious conflict and functioned as a proxy war.

Many Kurdish people (Muslims and Yazidis), Christians and Arab-Sunni refugees have sought protection in the predominantly Kurdish areas of northern Syria. However, large parts of the area are still cut off from the outside world. There are shortages because both the Islamists and the Syrian government forces have set up blockades in the south of the country – and the Turkish troops in the north. Further, the Turkish side does not allow convoys to cross the border in order to reach the Kurdish-Christian areas in Syria.

The vast majority of the approximately three million Syrian Kurds is represented by the "Kurdish Supreme Committee", a coalition of the major Kurdish organizations which was formed in 2013, mediated by Massoud Barzani, the president of the Iraqi province of Kurdistan.

The STP's Middle-East consultant, Dr. Kamal Sido, is available for further questions: +49 (0)551 – 499 06 18.