After the Islamist militia “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham” (HTS, or Organization for the Liberation of the Levant) took control of the Syrian-Kurdish region of Afrin, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) sent an appeal to the German Bundestag, demanding the parliament to force the government to reconsider its support for Turkish-controlled Islamist groups – as the supportive measures are strengthening the axis Moscow-Tehran-Damascus. In the scope of the so-called “Astana Format”, Turkey cooperates closely with these regimes.

“The HTS is the Syrian branch of the Al-Qaeda network. The organizations that were in power before – groups that the German Federal Government saw as “moderate” Islamists – did not fight back. Some of them even swore fealty to the HTS. In the fight against the so-called “Islamic State”, Kurdish and other groups had borne the brunt,” stated Dr. Kamal Sido, the STP’s Middle East Consultant. “The aim of the pro-Turkish Islamist groups always was to enrich themselves at the expense of the local population – or to expel them by force.”  

The German government, especially the Foreign Office, has been supporting the so-called “National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces” for years. “It is to be seen as the political arm of the Islamist militias – and it has been under complete control by Erdogan for quite a while. In Afrin and other Turkish-occupied areas of northern Syria, these militias are killing, raping, and terrorizing the Kurdish people, the Assyrians/Aramaeans, the Armenians, Christians, Yazidis, and Alevis. It is especially the women that are suffering under the reign of the Islamist occupiers,” Sido emphasized. “Erdogan’s assertions that the militias are merely providing protection and security to the occupied regions of northern Syria are just empty talk: the rivaling pro-Turkish militias in Afrin are fighting each other. For the civilian population, the situation in these areas is like hell on earth.” 

Meanwhile, the Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) are still blocking humanitarian aid for regions in northern Syria that are inhabited by Kurds and other minority groups – even if these areas are under control by the “Syrian Democratic Forces”. The German Federal Government is planning “… to limit measures of support to the core Arab region along the Euphrates, which is under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces in the governorates of Deir-ez-Zor and Raqqa.” According to Sido, German politicians are downright afraid of Erdogan. “As long as this kowtow continues, we cannot speak of a value-based foreign policy. This is detrimental to Germany’s image all over the world.”