Human rights activists demand support for the Kurds in northern Syria

With a vigil outside the US Embassy in Berlin, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) called on Barack Obama to keep up the support for the Kurds and other minorities in northern Syria. In August, US Vice President Joe Biden stated that the Syrian Democratic Forces should withdraw from the area to the west of the river Euphrates in accordance with demands from the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, although the forces – which are led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) – are partners of the US in the struggle against Islamist groups such as the “Islamic State” (IS). On the same day, Erdogan sent the Turkish Army to invade northern Syria and to occupy territories the Kurds had liberated from IS. Some of the villages are now controlled by “moderate” Islamists, who – like IS – are planning to introduce an Islamic law.

“Biden’s concessions are to be seen as a betrayal of the Kurds and the other minority groups,” said Kamal Sido, the STP’s Middle East consultant, angrily. During the past three years, the Syrian Kurds and their Assyrian Aramaic, Arabic, and Turkmen allies managed to liberate a territory of 39,000 square kilometers in northern Syria along the Syrian-Turkish border from the IS, other Islamist groups, as well as from Assad’s troops. However, the two Kurdish Cantons, to the east of the Euphrates and to the west of the Euphrates, are still separated. “It would be vital to establish a connection between the two areas, as there is a blockage around the Kurdish enclave Afrin. The inhabitants are in desperate need of humanitarian aid and food,” said Sido.

Despite these difficulties, the Kurds and their allies managed to build up an “oasis of peace”. Sido emphasized that the Kurds never questioned or tried to undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria or Turkey. Nevertheless, this is what the Erdogan’s Turkish government claims, as a pretext to fight them. What the Kurds and other minority groups are fighting for is a democratic federal state in Syria, a self-government for Rojava, as the area in the north of Syria is called. There, the protection of minorities and several other freedom rights are already part of everyday life.

Now, Erdogan’s aim is to destroy this “oasis of peace” in northern Syria. The United States, Germany, and the EU cannot tolerate this under any circumstances. The autonomous administration of northern Syria – which is to be seen as the only power in Syria to consistently pursue a secular agenda, and which has already taken up and protected hundreds of thousands of refugees – is to be left to its fate. “The United States, Germany, and the EU must not allow this, under any circumstances,” Sido appealed.