ECR Press Release: Turkey's Christmas Bombings in North-East Syria
Emergency Committee for Rojava Condemns Turkey’s Christmas Day Bombing of the Democratic Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (DAANES/Rojava); Calls on the Biden Administration to Intervene
For immediate release Contact: Debbie Bookchin
December 26, 2023 press@defendrojava.org
In a barbaric act on Christmas morning, the Erdogan regime in Turkey unleashed a wave of bombings against civilian targets in North and East Syria that killed 8 civilians and wounded more than a dozen.
The Rojava Information Center reported that Turkey targeted 18 different civilian infrastructure sites in Kurdish-led North and East Syria, with 32 airstrikes on Christmas Day. The sites included a hospital, train station, grain silos, a mill, a petrol station, factories producing construction materials, a printing house and a book binding operation.
The bombardment, which included strikes on the municipalities of Qamishli, Amude, Tirbespi and Kobane, on a day when the region’s Christians were planning a joyous celebration of the Christmas holiday, forced the region’s administrators to announced the closing Tuesday of schools, institutes and universities because of the danger to civilians of the strikes. It marked yet another deadly day in Turkey’s increasingly aggressive posture toward the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), a region that is home to 5 million people.
“These completely unprovoked attacks on civilian infrastructure are war crimes, yet no one in the Biden Administration is willing to hold NATO member Turkey accountable,” said ECR steering committee member Debbie Bookchin. She noted that Turkey’s bombings can only occur with the tacit approval of the U.S. and that the Biden Administration has a security interest and moral obligation not to allow Turkey to hobble the Kurdish-led autonomous region, which has provided the boots-on-the-ground man- and woman-power that has been indispensable in fighting ISIS.
“During the last presidential campaign, Joe Biden correctly pointed out that Donald Trump ‘sold out’ and ‘betrayed’ our Kurdish partners in 2019 when he green-lit Erdogan’s attacks against Rojava by withdrawing U.S. troops,” Bookchin said.
At the time, Biden stated: “Donald Trump sold out the Syrian Democratic Forces — the courageous Kurds and Arabs who fought with us to smash ISIS’s caliphate — and he betrayed a key local ally in the fight against terrorism.”
“It’s been the most shameful thing any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy,” Biden said.
By turning a blind eye to Turkey’s increasingly aggressive attacks on the region, Biden is betraying our Kurdish partners as well, Bookchin said. She noted that Turkey’s attacks on Christmas Day followed massive bombardments over the past year that were especially bad in October, shattering NES’s fragile infrastructure and depriving some 2 million people of water and electricity, according to a comprehensive report by the Rojava Information Center. The autocrat Erdogan is also increasingly using drones to assassinate women leaders of the Kurdish movement in Syria, apparently terrified by the democratic, women-led society on his border. With these attacks, the Turkish state aims to destabilize the region, displace the original inhabitants of the area, and destroy the democratic project of DAANES which is based on women’s empowerment and pluralism.
These attacks are occurring at a time when the Biden administration is seeking Congressional approval for a $20 billion deal to supply Turkey with F-16 fighter jets and other military equipment. NATO-member Turkey is known for human rights abuses and transborder military attacks on Syria and Iraq, regions that are home to diverse populations, including Kurds, Yezidis, and Assyrians.
“Biden is also pushing for the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, which will make these attacks worse,” Bookchin said. “The U.S. Congress must say ‘no’ to this sale. We call on congressional leaders to reject this sale and to press the Biden Administration to work for a negotiated durable peace between Turkey and its Kurdish population, something that can happen with the Biden Administration behind it,” she said. “It’s time for the U.S. stand up for democracy in the Middle East,” she said.
The bombardment of civilian targets goes against the 1949 Geneva Conventions on humanitarian conduct in war, which prohibit and make illegal attacks on sites considered essential for civilians. ECR called for the Biden Administration’s State Department to demand an immediate halt to all military operations against North and East Syria by Turkey and to press Erdogan to resume negotiations with the PKK, which PKK leaders have called for repeatedly.
For more information contact: info@defendrojava.org or press@defendrojava.org